All Tomorrow's Parties
by OmniHelix
Summary: A collaboration between writers henriettaline and OmniHelix. A sequel to "The Wine Dark Sea". Reunited Finchel plan a birthday party for a strangely reluctant friend.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is a collaboration with fellow writer henriettaline (please read her stuff!), and takes place after my story "The Wine Dark Sea". Both of us wanted to write a reunited Finchel story, but also one that involved many of our favorite OC's from our different stories. So, in a sense, it is a gift to our faithful readers, without whose support we probably wouldn't bother, and, hopefully for new readers, an exposure to characters we love as much as the canon characters. Although not necessary, it will help to first read "The Wine Dark Sea" and henriettaline's awesome "Pause, Rewind, Replay" and "Don't Give Yourself Away". As always, reviews are welcome! **

**Note: We do not own any Glee characters, but do own our own creations. Title is from the song "All Tomorrow's Parties", by Lou Reed. **

It stopped raining a half-hour before midnight. The walk from the Canal Street station to The Arabica diner was only a few blocks, and Finn and Rachel took advantage of the late-March, 45-degree weather to enjoy a stroll on the wet, almost-empty streets. Arm-in-arm, each leaned into the other, as much to celebrate their reunion as to ward off the early-spring chill. The wet pavement gleamed orange under the streetlights.

All of their work was caught up, and they decided to head into Manhattan to pay their waitress friend Marge a visit at the diner.

Rachel felt content. Being with Finn again had turned out even better than when they had been so ridiculously in love in high school. Back then, other things in their lives were still hanging, unresolved. They had to part almost every night. Now, she and Finn had direction and stability, with the added bonus of ending each day in their warm bed together. Finally. All the drama and heartbreak of the last three years was somehow beginning to fade. Their life together was a reality. And it was better than she had ever dared hope.

Compared to living with Kurt, Finn was definitely low-maintenance. He had no extensive moisturizing routine, and almost all of his toiletries fit into the compact leather shaving kit that once belonged to his father. All he needed was time in the morning to shower, shave, and brush his teeth. During the week he was usually up before Rachel and Kurt, since his job at the garage began early so he could leave to attend his classes at Queens College, all of which he managed to schedule in the afternoon. So they usually awoke to fresh coffee and breakfast fixings, and could argue over bathroom toiletry space to their heart's content. In turn, since Finn was usually the last to get home, dinner was always waiting when he walked in the door.

Finn sometimes had to work Saturday shifts to make enough money. This was primarily due to the fact he always took Wednesdays off from the garage. Rachel smiled to herself, remembering how, after putting together his class schedule, he noticed that Rachel's schedule for Wednesdays consisted of all morning classes, while his were all in the afternoon. The first Wednesday, Rachel was surprised when he accompanied her to NYADA on the train, and tried sitting in on her classes. One instructor objected, so he spent his time that hour sitting on a bench in the hall.

"Carmen Tibideaux saw me sitting on the bench," he told her later, excitedly. "She asked me what I was doing at the school, since I wasn't a student (how did she even freaking know that?), and I told her I was waiting for someone, and when she asked who, I said Rachel Berry. She looked at me for a long time, then said, 'You were her male lead at the National Show Choir Championship in Chicago. You were rough, but I liked what I saw, and you had excellent chemistry with Ms. Berry.' I thanked her, then she asked if I was getting musical training. I said I was at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and she patted my shoulder. 'Good, good…' she said, and left."

Rachel jumped in his lap and hugged him fiercely. "You see? I always knew you had it in you." He was joyfully surprised when she accompanied him back across the river to sit in on _his_ classes. Wednesdays became their way of cheering each other on. He did put his foot down, however, when she asked if she could wear her old "Team Finn" t-shirt to his classes.

She loved sleeping with Finn every night. They slept entwined, so close not even a sheet of paper could slip between them. Kurt once tried waking them up one Sunday morning, and remarked that it was difficult to distinguish where Rachel ended and Finn began.

Late at night, in each others arms, they talked. They talked about what drove them apart, the insecurity, the doubt, and what brought them back together, the resolve, the self-confidence, and the love that simply could not, would not, be denied. They honestly talked about Callie, Brody, and Patrick. Each conversation left them hurting a little bit less; each time they made love the scars faded further. The pain became, more and more, just a part of their story, a gauge against which the joy of their reunion could be measured and appreciated.

She squeezed Finn's arm tightly as she thought about the best thing of all: the music. In high school she fantasized about living with Finn and bursting into spontaneous duets as they washed dishes or, in her naughtier fantasies, took showers together. Reality turned out to be less dramatic, but far more satisfying. One day she came home from a class and found Finn under the sink, removing the trap for cleaning. He sang as he worked:

_**Put a candle in the window, but I feel I've got to move.**_

_**Though I'm going, going, I'll be coming home soon,**_

_**'Long as I can see the light.**_

_**Pack my bag and let's get movin', 'cause I'm bound to drift a while.**_

_**Well I'm gone, gone, you don't have to worry, no **_

_**'Long as I can see the light.**_

_**Guess I've got that old trav'lin' bone, **_

_**'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.**_

_**But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no**_

_**'Long as I can see the light.***_

Rachel applauded when he finished, and he smiled.

"I sang that a lot when we were apart." She dropped to her hands and knees, pulling him out from under the sink for a tearful kiss.

They sang duets in the shower. She sang Rogers and Hammerstein to Finn at random moments, just for the joy of it, and Sondheim when she wanted to make love to him. They sang songs with Kurt at dinner and became _the_ force to be reckoned with at Callbacks. Music, much to their delight, took back its rightful place as the mortar of their relationship.

The lights of the diner flooded the sidewalk, washing out the orange from the streetlamps. They could see Geoff Fielding inside, talking to Marge, along with a few other NYU Friday night regulars.

Marge Bailey welcomed them with warm hugs. She was tall, almost lanky, with thick, wavy red hair, and a deep, yet feminine voice. She called everyone "hun". The consensus was that she was in her mid-fifties, but nobody knew for sure. Finn, who had stayed at her place for a few days when he first came to New York, said she looked and acted differently at home than at the diner. He privately told an intrigued Rachel that she looked glamorous and downright beautiful at home, and dressed fashionably- very New York chic- when she came out to Ohio to meet him.

Rachel met Marge the first couple of weeks she was in New York. She couldn't sleep and wanted a place to study with decent coffee. The Arabica was only a few blocks from the NYADA dorms, and Marge worked the graveyard shift. The two of them started talking, and Marge became her first real New York friend. Rachel soon learned there was more to Marge than met the eye. She was a Tisch-trained stage actress, who cut short a thriving career ten years ago when her beloved husband Nigel, an NYU drama professor, fell ill and died of cancer. "He was my muse," she said. She took the job as a waitress because her grief wouldn't let her sleep, even though she apparently didn't actually need to work.

Marge became Rachel's confidant. She listened sympathetically when Rachel discussed the singing contest, and was the one who secretly went to Lima when Finn was there, and convinced him to write the song that reunited them. They loved her dearly for that, and because Marge was, well, just awesome.

Finn and Rachel caught her up on their progress since they had talked last.

"And how are your Wednesdays working out? Is that one instructor still not letting you sit in?"

"Yeah", Finn said, "But it's kind of cool because whenever Carmen goes by she always asks how I'm doing now."

"That's because she has the same feeling about you as I have." Marge filled Finn's cup. Rachel told her about an upcoming musical for which she was going to audition.

Geoff broke away from his NYU friends and joined them, looking both exhausted and excited. "Our families are paying for Elena to come out for my birthday on the 31st!" he exclaimed. That was great news for him. Elena was at UC Berkeley, and being apart played hell with their sleep. Both were aspiring writers, avid surfers, and as hopelessly in love as Finn and Rachel, having met on an LA beach when they were only thirteen. He and Rachel met at the diner one sleepless night, and became friends when they realized they had insomnia and epic romances in common.

"No surfing, though, dude," said Finn. Geoff gave him a sad shrug.

"Sleep _will_ be on the agenda, right?" Rachel asked, also grinning, though she did worry about his health. He just blushed.

"Yes, ma'am". She playfully punched his arm. Then something occurred to her. "When's your birthday, Marge?"

Marge didn't answer right away. Instead, she stared into the counter she had just polished. Then she spoke, softly, almost reluctantly.

"The day after Geoff's, actually."

"April Fool's Day?" Finn asked out loud, and everyone laughed. That brought a wistful smile to her face.

"Yeah. April Fool's Day."

"We should throw a party for you both!" Rachel exclaimed, clapping her hands.

Geoff seemed amenable, but Marge immediately shook her head, re-polishing the counter furiously.

"I don't celebrate my birthdays with parties, hun," she said finally. Seeing Rachel's look of disappointment, she patted her arm. "Just a personal preference, dear." Something in the way she said it felt false and unconvincing.

Later, Rachel told Finn they still needed to do something for Marge's birthday.

"We can't just ignore it, Finn! I bet she just doesn't want to be fussed over, but if we do it right she could have a ball!" He could almost hear the wheels turning in Rachel's head.

"We're not going to throw her a party if she doesn't want one," Finn replied firmly.

The silence following her pout told him he hadn't heard the end of this.

*** Lyrics are from "Long As I Can See The Light", by John Fogerty **


	2. Chapter 2

Marge watched Rachel and Finn leave with Geoff around 4AM, along with the other customers, and decided the old wooden counter needed further polishing. It didn't really, but there was something about the mindless, repetitive motion that seemed like meditation to her. Sometimes, she would stare at her reflection in the gleaming wood, and see Nigel's face in it as well. The polishing cloth became her plectrum, which she used on the old counter to try and summon Nigel to keep her company. But he rarely answered the summons, and Marge knew it was because it was his way of telling her she needed the company of the living.

She polished furiously now, because she needed him then, needed him to tell her it was okay to not celebrate her birthday with friends. But he didn't appear and she slowed, weighed down by her loss. After ten years, she thought, it should be easier.

It wasn't. The longing for him pleasuring her still made her ache.

And then there were the memories in dreams, like the one she had last night.

**XXXXxxxxxxx**

He touched a finger to his lips for reverent silence, and then took her hand, leading down the steep wooded slope towards the old stone aqueduct that crossed the river. Marge took a look back at the classic green Land Rover Nigel borrowed from his parents, parked on the road at the crest of the slope, and felt a flush of excitement. A week-and-a-half ago she was Marge Johnson, stage actress, New York City born-and-bred. Now she was Marge Bailey, tramping through the wilds of England's West Country, on honeymoon with her new husband.

Halfway down the slope, in the shade of gnarled oak trees, Nigel stopped. Marge waited, breathing heavily.

"This is very ancient forest," he said, almost in a whisper, looking about him in awe.

The air was close under the canopy. Everything seemed a shade of green or black-green. There was the musty smell of old leaves and wood; some of the bright June sunlight managed to dapple the forest floor. Marge wiped sweat from her brow, wondering what Nigel would do next. She could have kissed him when he pulled the thermos of lemonade from his backpack and offered it to her.

"Almost there, luv," he said, amused at her trying to look demure and sip when she wanted to drink the entire cupful in one gulp.

"It's gorgeous here," she said, looking around. It was so quiet she could hear the soft rushing of the Torridge River below, and every cry of a bird startled her. Through the trees she could see the arches of the aqueduct.

"Do you think we can actually find the spot where Tarka was born?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I doubt it." He pulled an old, battered book from his pack and opened it to the first bookmark. "He was born in the hollow log of a fallen oak, by this bridge. Williamson published the book in 1927. After fifty-five years the log will have rotted away. If we just find the approximate spot, it'll be enough."

She drew up behind him, and looked at the book over his shoulder. It was _Tarka the Otter_, by Henry Williamson, a novel Nigel read when he was a young child, and which he said had a huge influence on him. It portrayed the life of an otter with poetic realism. All of the places Williamson described in the book actually existed, and when Nigel asked if she would like to go find Tarka's actual birthplace with him, Marge was delighted.

The night before, when they were in bed back at the farm, Nigel told her the book was a classic of nature writing. Marge had never heard of it. Was it like _The_ _Wind in the Willows_, or _Watership Down_? She loved those.

"I'm not surprised you never heard of it," Nigel had replied, sadly. "Williamson's reputation was ruined by his Nazi sympathies. His experiences in the trenches during the Great War made him a pacifist, and he thought Hitler's early programs in Germany were admirable and peaceful. I think he came to recant those views later, but it was too late." He seemed truly down by that, so she had snuggled close and nuzzled his neck, trying to lighten his mood. It worked.

She dropped her day pack and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him as a reward for, well, marrying her. His soft beard caressed her face as she pressed against him, and she felt his desire for her creating its inevitable electricity.

Nigel was the most virile man she had ever met. It wasn't something he projected outwardly; he was small, almost slight, but she knew how tough and sinewy he was beneath that Savile Row suit. He boxed at Oxford, and backpacked across Nepal. Best of all, along with the cool, intellectual exterior and the impeccable manners came a prodigious sex drive dedicated entirely to pleasuring her. There had been lovers in Marge's past, but none of them drove her as crazy, brought her to such heights of ecstasy, as Nigel Bailey. He adored her, pure and simple. It was an honor, he once whispered to her late at night, to just be able to speak her name. And she adored him back. From the very beginning their passion for each other was so natural, so all-encompassing, that when he actually proposed to her, on the stage after a performance, in front of the entire cast and crew, it seemed almost anticlimactic.

"Hold on to that that thought," he murmured as she threw him a smoldering look. She strapped her pack back on and they crept further down the slope of the combe, hand-in-hand for support, until they found themselves at the bottom, on the bank of the river itself. The aqueduct, a multi-arched edifice of gray and green stone, spanned the river before them, only two-hundred yards away.

"Is all of Devon like this?" she asked. "Steep valley after steep valley, with streams or rivers at the bottom? It sure seems like it."

"Not all," Nigel replied. They were making their way out of the trees to a grassy expanse approaching the aqueduct, reeds swaying on the bank. The breeze was refreshing after the closeness of the wooded slope. "We skirted some moors to the west as we drove up here."

"Moors?" Marge was delighted. "_Wuthering Heights_ kinds of moors?" Nigel smiled.

"Probably not as bloody cold as the ones up in Yorkshire, but similar, yes."

"Let's go see them on the way back," she said, loving the look of happiness come over his face.

"I'm so glad you're enjoying this part of the honeymoon, luv." His voice was tender. "I wasn't sure if it might not be a touch too…provincial."

She just looked at him.

"Provincial? Baby, Paramus New Jersey is provincial. This is just fucking gorgeous! Besides," she pulled him close again, "this is where you grew up. It helped make you what you are. And I love what you are, how could I not love it also?"

They walked onto the flat, grassy area.

"This looks as good a place as any," he said, and pulled out his camera. "It's perfect otter habitat…but it needs a bonnie lass in the picture." So she posed for him. Years later, as she cleaned out his office at NYU, Marge found the picture in a little frame, on a bookshelf next to the old hardback copy of _Tarka the Otter._

They ate lunch on a large white-and-red checked cloth: Ham sandwiches, potato salad she made before they left, washed down with ginger beer. She remembered lying back afterwards, content, and Nigel saying how gorgeous her red hair looked in the sun, and how they couldn't keep their hands off one another, and how she looked forward to spending the rest of her life with him.

Afterwards, lying naked in his arms, the soft breeze tempering the warmth of the sun, Marge didn't think she'd ever been happier. But then, she had been saying that almost since the moment they met. The wedding in New York, the first week of their honeymoon-indulging their passion for the theatre by seeing a new play every night, and making love much of the rest of the time, with occasional meal breaks- were blissful enough, but this week in England, alone in this rural paradise where Nigel grew up, was overwhelming.

It was fascinating to see him in his element.

The first day at the farm, his parents had them settle into the old gamekeeper's cottage on the property, for privacy. It dated back to the 18th Century, but had been renovated with some modern amenities, like electricity, a bathroom and running water. There was no kitchen; meals were all served up at the main farmhouse. It was rented as a bed-and-breakfast to tourists during the spring and early summer.

That evening, Amos Bailey drove the family down to the local pub to show off his new daughter-in-law. Marge was terrified. She, of course, had met his parents at the wedding, and loved them. Amos and Emily Bailey seemed overjoyed with her. But she wondered what the rest of his world felt about this tall, exotic Yank actress from New York who had won the heart of their local boy who made good.

The Sparrowhawk was an ancient inn, 400 years old, situated in a wood on an old post road, with massive wooden beams and a thatched roof. Inside, it was all dark wood, dominated by a large hearth and fire. Five or six people were scattered about at tables, or at the large, polished wooden bar. All looked up as they entered, and Marge could feel the looks of recognition for Nigel and his parents, but almost cold glances at her. She panicked, but Nigel gently squeezed her hand as Amos announced "this is my new daughter, Margaret." The thaw was immediate. People began offering to buy the four of them rounds, and she tasted excellent Dorset ale, Tanglefoot, for the first time. There were lots of questions about her profession, and had she been in any films? By the end of the evening she felt welcomed and loved by all. Everyone certainly knew and loved him.

Marge noticed Nigel revert more and more to a very thick accent as the evening wore on. Tisch had trained her in several accents, but those of England's West Country weren't any of them. Lots of z's in place of s's, and strange words. She often had trouble following it. In New York his accent was usually a charming Queen's English inflected with a soft West Country tang. Perhaps the alcohol loosened the control he maintained on his speech, or maybe it was just being surrounded by people speaking the way he did when he grew up that broadened his tongue. It fascinated her.

She asked him about it that night, luxuriating in the comfort of a real feather bed.

"You tailor your accent to your audience," she noted, stroking his hair, "Just like Mellors, the gamekeeper in _Lady Chatterley's Lover_."

He chuckled, somewhat embarrassed. "At Oxford I noticed people treated me differently when I dropped the heavy accent, took me more seriously. Of course," Nigel laughed again, "I forgot to relax it when I came back home, and caught a hell of a ribbing in that very pub. Got called posh."

"It wasn't like you were poor or anything," Marge pointed out,"You told me the farm was very prosperous. So…did people think you were stupid or something when you spoke in your normal accent?" She understood where he was coming from. The situation was similar in New York. She had a flat Manhattan accent, as compared to the broader Queens and Brooklyn dialects; some people thought she was from California. But she realized that in some circles, a Bronx, Queens or Staten Island accent carried a stigma with it, as being unsophisticated.

"It had nothing to do with money or intelligence," Nigel said, shaking his head, "but everything to do with class. Which was also the problem with Mellors's accent, if you recall." He didn't let that sink in, however; she was soon writhing under his kisses.

They made love one more time before leaving the riverbank. She caught him looking back at it as they started up the slope back to the car. He was that little boy again, entranced by the life of a river otter, filled with an open innocence. She engraved that image of him on her heart, another facet of the man to whom she pledged her life.

She rewarded him for marrying her again by playing Cathy to his Heathcliff as they stopped by the moors on the way back to the farm.

**XXXXxxxxxx**

The memory brought a smile to Marge's face, softening her countenance, and the world-weary waitress persona she projected while at work fell away, revealing the beautiful, middle-aged woman she actually was. The lankiness, which was deliberate, disappeared. The wavy, coppery-red hair set off her still-creamy, fair skin with the sprinkling of freckles, and if she had chosen a more subtle lipstick, her full lips would have been seductive and sensual. There were lines now around her deep-set green eyes, and her cheap waitress uniform and sensible shoes did her slender figure no favors, but it was still easy to see the woman Nigel fell so madly in love with all those years ago.

A sudden thought caused her to freeze. There was only her reflection in the counter. She wondered, almost guiltily, if anyone else could love her like Nigel did. And if she could ever love him back.


	3. Chapter 3

All the talk about parties set Rachel to thinking.

"You know, Finn," she said, on the train back to Bushwick, "We ought to throw a party at the apartment to just celebrate us and living with Kurt and, well, _everything!_ "

"Sounds good to me," Finn said, grateful that, at least for now, they weren't discussing planning a party for the obviously reluctant Marge.

"It can be simple, just appetizers, drinks…music…"

"How about a karaoke machine?"

"PERFECT!" she squealed, rewarding Finn with a huge kiss, garnering them strange, but at least tolerant looks from the few passengers in the car with them.

The next morning was a Saturday which Finn did not have to work, so he, Rachel and Kurt enjoyed a late breakfast together. Kurt, surprisingly, was on board with the apartment party idea, and immediately they were immersed in a discussion over the guest list.

Finn mentioned two of his classmates, Clement and Eli. Clement would probably bring his girlfriend, Ally, who was at Rutgers, if she could make it. Eli was currently unattached.

"So we should probably make sure we invite some unattached girls."

"I'm inviting my friend Amanda and her friend Megan," Rachel chimed in, then looked at Kurt, "You've met their friend Morris, right?"

"Yeah…I've met him. He seems okay." Kurt looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh, Kurt," Rachel said with a sigh, "I'm not trying to set you up with him."

Kurt laughed, then. "Oh what the hell, we can't have me be the only fabulous one in the room." Things with Blaine had been improving, but, with the distance, at a glacial pace.

Rachel beamed at him. "That's the spirit!" She continued. "We must invite Geoff, of course." Finn and Kurt nodded enthusiastically. Then she looked at Finn and took his hand. Her eyes dropped. "Finn, what do you think about inviting Patrick? "

Finn appreciated Rachel's concern. After all, the guy had tried writing a song to win Rachel's heart. But things were different now. Everyone knew where they stood. And Patrick had taken the results of the contest graciously, unlike Brody. He smiled.

"Sure, baby, invite him. He's cool." He squeezed her hand, and loved the relief in her eyes.

Finn laughed suddenly, causing Rachel and Kurt to look over. He shook his head slowly.

"I was thinking of inviting Brody, but that would mean him bringing…no….just, _no._" All three laughed.

The source of their mirth was one of the biggest scandals to hit NYADA in years.

Soon after the contest, Brody seemed to drop out of sight. Somebody thought he was dating some other freshman girl, but nobody could confirm.

Her name was Anne Neilson, it turned out. She was a gorgeous, well-connected blonde from San Francisco, furious and humiliated over being dumped by Brody after only a few weeks. She revealed all in a dramatic confrontation one Wednesday, right in front of Finn, who was waiting for Rachel.

"I was just minding my own business, reading a book," Finn told Rachel as they walked to the train station, "When the next thing I know, this girl is standing right in front of me, giving Brody a killer stink eye, saying loud enough for New Jersey to hear, 'Don't even try and look at me, you slimy teacherfucker!'".

"What?" Rachel asked, giggling, "We heard some commotion outside, but couldn't quite make it out."

"I don't know how you couldn't have heard every syllable. God, she looked so pissed."

"What did Brody do?"

"He tried calming her down, and put his hand on her shoulder, saying 'I'm sorry', but she just exploded. 'Get your hands off me, asshole', she said, then wacked him with her gym bag across the face."

"Oh my God!" Rachel's eyes widened.

"That's not the best part." Finn grinned at Rachel's incredulous expression. "She hit him, then said, 'If you think you can sleep with me, then just suddenly end it _after two weeks_ to go fuck that drunken has-been Cassandra July, you're very much mistaken!', right as Carmen Tibideaux came round the corner."

Finn wished he had his phone ready to take pictures, because Rachel's face at that moment was priceless. 

"Brody's sleeping with…Cassandra? What did Carmen do?"

"She stopped dead and just stared at them. Brody tried to say something, but Carmen held up her hand. And the girl just looked like she was going to explode." Finn tried to imitate her look, and Rachel, as much as she was stunned, almost collapsed in giggles on the street. "Then Carmen said, 'Ms. Neilson, Mr. Weston, follow me.' And she turned around and the three of them marched off, to her office, I guess."

"So it was Anne Neilson," Rachel mused. "I would love to have been a fly on the wall listening in on that meeting. I hear her parents have considerable clout with the Board."

Details trickled out, despite both the meeting and disciplinary hearing being closed. Neither Anne nor Brody were officially disciplined: lovers, it seemed, were not forbidden from having spats in the halls, and nobody could find the specific regulation in the student handbook forbidding a student from having sex with a teacher. Rachel commented wryly that just being yelled at by Carmen would put the fear of God into anyone. Neither of them was allowed to talk about it on pain of expulsion. Cassandra, however, did not fare as well. Anne's parents made a formal request that she be fired. There was an announcement that Cassandra July had left on "sabbatical", and that her Spring semester Dance 101 would be taught by a a TA, Andrea Blasucci, until a replacement could be found. Everyone assumed that she had actually been dismissed.

Kurt managed to find out what actually happened, from a student who overheard a conversation between staff members. When Finn got home from school one evening, he and Rachel were waiting at the dinner table, overflowing with excitement. Rachel was nearly bursting, because Kurt had made her wait.

It was a disciplinary hearing befitting a school dedicated to the dramatic. Cassandra showed up for it, hand-in-hand with Brody, insisting that he be with her during the entire proceeding. She then made an impassioned plea, revealing that this was no shallow affair. She and Brody, it seemed, had fallen deeply in love. She could not, in good conscience, refrain from seeing him. But she admitted having broken policy, since she had appointed Brody her TA. In the end she threw herself on the mercy of the committee, causing one of the members to wryly note afterward it was one of her best dramatic performances.

The decision was compassionate and fair: Cassandra was given a forced one-and-one-half year sabbatical, to coincide with the rest of the time Brody needed to finish his degree, after which she could return to the faculty. Her tenure status was retained.

Kurt was determined to write a musical based on the whole thing. "This has turned out a far juicier plot than Pippa Middleton."

The experience had a profound effect on Brody and Cassandra. He moved in with Cassandra, shed his Casanova image, focused on his work, and, Rachel noticed, looked actually happier than she had ever seen him. Cassandra, heartened at Brody's steadfast support and love, found the courage to use the time off to audition again. At the time of the hearing there was buzz about an upcoming off-off-Broadway production of _Chicago. _ Marge and Rachel were talking about it one night at The Arabica. Rachel happened to mention that she heard Cassandra was auditioning for the role, and in typical fashion, said Cassandra would be perfect for it, but being an ex-teacher with the baggage of her old reputation, she faced some stiff competition. Marge, as everyone had come to realize, was exceptionally well-connected: she had worked for one of the producers. She made a call.

She also quietly made sure that Cassandra knew it was Rachel Berry's recommendation that got her the part.

"Okay, okay, so Brody and Cassandra are out", Rachel said, laughing.

Sean was added to the list, with the possibility of his bringing his girlfriend Emily, who was upstate at Syracuse.

"We also need to start thinking about Geoff's party," Rachel said, then, somewhat defensively, "And I still think we ought to do something for Marge," then added, responding to Finn's arched eyebrows, "But only if she's good with it."

Late that night, spooned together, they talked.

"So, do you still like living with me?" she asked. "Is it what you expected?"

"What brought that on?" he wondered out loud.

"I don't know. I still have to pinch myself to make sure we have this life together, after all that has happened. It's important to me that you love it as much as I do."

She felt him shift, then pull her even closer.

"It's not what I expected." Fortunately, his easy tone reassured her. "I thought it would be harder, to tell you the truth."

She smiled in the darkness, and squeezed his hand, which was cupping her right breast.

"I remember you describing the moisturizing thing you did in high school. I was expecting to have to work around that, but I haven't seen you do it. Kurt takes longer than you do now."

She chuckled softly. "There isn't the time that I had in high school—the train ride into Manhattan and back makes it impractical. Amanda has given me some tips on how to streamline the process, since she grew up sharing a bathroom. I've never shared a bathroom until now…and I had two doting dads."

"Are you saying I don't dote on you?" He playfully squeezed her breast, and was rewarded by her turning in his arms and giving him a kiss.

"You do more than that," she said, stroking his face. "You make me want to grow up."

"I do?"

"Yeah. I want to spend time with you, instead of moisturizing. I want to make you dinner instead of having it served to me, yet still adore your making my coffee every morning, starting breakfast during the week, and cooking it on weekends."

She paused for a moment. "You want to know what really makes me feel like I've grown up?"

"Sure."

"Before I lived with you, I thought my Daddy made the best pancakes in the entire world."

He kissed her forehead. "I'm glad you like them. I used to make breakfast on the weekends for Mom and me. She taught me all I know."

"You're a lovely man," she said.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: scenes at a party.**

Rachel was pleased. People had started to arrive, were sampling the delicacies she, Finn and Kurt had prepared, and were involved in animated conversation, as an iPod played a carefully constructed playlist all three of them put together. It was an eclectic mix of Broadway, classic and modern rock, and some jazz (Kurt was exploring John Coltrane as well as opera these days).

"You know, Finn," she said, pulling him aside after he placed a fresh plate of Vienna sausages and his patented barbecue sauce on the table, "I used to fantasize about throwing parties in New York, with everyone talking about art, and current events, and look! We're doing that right now! "

He loved seeing yet another facet of her New York dream come to fruition. To tell the truth, he was pleased as well. The party didn't have the juvenile edge of the ones they had in high school, where everyone was still exploring and testing limits. Nor did it have the wildness he had seen at some of the dorm parties to which Clement and Eli had invited him and Rachel. He thought back to that conversation they had a little while ago.

"It's like we talked about, growing up," he said, and kissed her.

"Yes, exactly," Rachel murmured. Then she shook her head.

"Um, Finn, do you see who I see, coming out of the bathroom?"

Finn did a double take. A good-looking blonde girl in a (very) short green dress and heels was walking—somewhat unsteadily- towards them. It was the girl from the NYADA hallway, Anne Neilson.

"Did you invite her, Finn?" Rachel hissed.

"No! Hell, I barely know her name!"

"Then who did? " Rachel stalked off to grill Kurt, as Anne approached. Finn put on his best host face.

"Hi Anne," he said warmly. "I hope you're enjoying yourself." He could smell the alcohol on her already—she must have gotten sauced before arriving. Which was a shame, he thought, she was a very pretty girl.

She stopped in front of him, and, even though she was tall and in heels, still had to look up at his face. Her eyes were slightly unfocused.

"Hi! Who are you? You're gorgeous! " she tried batting her eyelashes, and he almost laughed out loud.

"I'm Finn. Welcome to our party." At that moment Rachel arrived, and, seeing the eyelash display, chuckled, taking Finn's arm.

Anne looked at Rachel. "You're Rachel Berry!" she exclaimed.

Rachel nodded.

"You're the Showcase winner. Amazing pipes. Even better than me…" Anne looked over to see Kurt letting Sean and Emily in the door. "Oooh..I like him," she said, and turned on her heel, almost falling over, then headed towards Kurt. Finn and Rachel laughed, letting her go for the moment.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Finn said, "Maybe get her started on coffee, or non-alcoholic beer."

"Nobody seems to know who invited her, or how she found us, or anything," Rachel marveled. They watched her approach Kurt, then Sean, taking rebuffs reasonably well, at least.

Finn left to answer the door. Rachel was delighted to see Geoff arrive. Letting Finn get him settled, she went over and checked on Anne, who was looking over the food (a good thing). She seemed to be favoring Rachel's stuffed mushrooms. Then she went over to greet Geoff.

Things were going well, so far. As long as they could keep Anne under control. She knew Anne's roommate, and decided to call her if needed.

So far, however, it seemed fine.

**XXXxxxx**

Geoff was running a bit late. The short nap he had planned turned out to run longer than expected, which probably was a good thing, these days. Of course, that left him with less time to roll a few perfect bombers, just in case anyone wanted to indulge; Geoff was nothing if not a gracious guest. He also had a bottle of wine as well.

The weather allowed him to wear his favored attire: a blue-and-white Mexican surfer hoodie, jeans, and suede desert boots. Not typical New York chic, he knew. But his friends accepted him as he was, so Geoff was content. He made his way to the subway station, looking forward to some good music and conversation. It would keep his mind off of missing Elena; the thought of her being there for his birthday had screwed up his sleep even more than usual, but the nap had left him refreshed and wanting to just enjoy himself.

The train crossed the Williamsburg Bridge. The car was almost full, so Geoff stood, giving his seat to a tired-looking middle-aged black woman who just got on the train. She thanked him gratefully, but seemed too exhausted to chat. A professional-looking young woman with dark hair and a laptop bag smiled at him, and he smiled politely back. A young child in adorable pig-tails hid shyly behind her mother's leg when he caught her eye and winked. It was Friday evening, and people were tired. He told himself to write down these little details when he got to Finn and Rachel's place, so he wouldn't forget.

He could hear music playing behind the door as he knocked. Finn opened it.

"Hey, Geoff! Glad you could make it!" A nice bro-hug. Finn led him to one bedroom where he fished out the wine and left his pack on the bed.

"And there's a little _extra_ something, if anybody needs it," Geoff said, and Finn nodded.

"Thanks."

"Geoff!" It was Rachel, who gave him a huge hug. "Come, let's get you introduced!" He remembered his notebook.

"Rachel, is it okay if I sit here and write some things down in my notebook first? Some cool details from my train ride?"

"Of course! Come out when you're ready!" She was well-aware of his writing habits. She gave Finn a quick, sidelong look, and disappeared.

"I'll pop back in a few," Finn said.

"Thanks, man." He sat on the rug, back against the bed, and started scribbling. He liked the music that was playing, nice and upbeat, but he didn't know who it was.

"Hey." A woman's voice. Geoff looked up. A good-looking blonde in a nice short green dress was standing in the doorway.

"Hi." He looked at her expectantly, then noticed the glazed expression. She walked in, almost normally, considering she was wearing heels, then tripped on the rug, ending up sitting, immodestly, next to him. She giggled.

"Oops! Hi, I'm Anne."

"I'm Geoff," he said, delicately pulling her hem down. "Nice to meet you."

"I don't know you. You're gorgeous." She seemed nice, but way too drunk to be even remotely alluring.

"Thanks," he said carefully, "You're pretty," and reached for his pack to put the notebook away so he could make his escape.

Anne sat there, dazed, then her head shot up. "Have you seen Brody?"

Geoff smiled. "Maybe. I'll try and find him, okay?"

She nodded happily. "You're nice. You're gorgeous." And she tried to kiss him as he stood up. He fled, looking for Finn.

"Ah, that's Anne Neilson", Finn said. "Nobody knows how she got here, or who invited her, and she's making the rounds, though somebody said she's looking for Brody. She's been cut off the booze. Luckily she thinks the non-alcoholic brew is legit, but she got a great head-start somewhere."

The idea of a drink sounded very good at that moment, so he and Finn headed toward the drinks table. Geoff was perusing the beer selection when a pretty girl approached them. Finn smiled and said, 'Geoff, this is Emily Greiter. She and her boyfriend Sean have been wanting to meet you and Elena."

Geoff shook her hand. "Unfortunately, Elena is in California." She nodded.

"At Berkeley, right?"

"Yep."

"Maybe some other time, then," she said. "I'm always interested in meeting people who are seriously contemplating the writing life."

He was starting to enjoy the party already. This was the kind of conversation he had hoped to have. He chose his beer, and raised his eyebrows as if to get one for Emily, but she shook her head.

"I'm good, thanks," she said.

"Are you contemplating the writing life?" he asked, curious.

"No, not really, though I think every Lit student, at some time or another, thinks she can write better stuff." They both laughed.

She was a fresman Lit student at Syracuse.

"I've always wanted to be a writer," he said, "And so has Elena."

She seemed fascinated.

"I hear you even edit each other's term papers. Is that true?"

He nodded, chuckling. "I know, that sounds a bit excessive, but the fact is, she is the only editor I trust." Then he added, "Of course, that could be a problem when I decide to try and get published."

"Yes, that would be a problem."

She asked him about his writing, if he had any themes. He wrote about life, he said, without sounding trite. He appreciated the fact that she didn't pry. She seemed to understand his reluctance to reveal anything more about his writing until he thought it was perfect; perhaps Rachel had told her about his quirks. The truth was, he could only talk about such details with Elena. The conversation shifted, more comfortably, towards books. They were deep into a pleasant discussion on why Jane Austen mattered (she gave him some good reasons to appreciate Austen's work more) when Rachel came by and touched his arm.

"Geoff, I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, smiling apologetically, "But there is someone I'd like you to meet, just for a moment, if that's okay."

"Sure" he said, but smiled at Emily, "Come with me—I want to talk about Austen more after", and she followed Rachel along with him.

Rachel stopped at a table, with an open laptop sitting on it. She pointed to the screen, so he followed her finger—and gasped. Elena was sitting on her bed in her room at Berkeley, apparently, with friends milling about in the background.

"Hey baby," she said, with a grin.

A blonde girl poked her head into view, waving. "Hi Geoff!" It was Joanne, her roommate. He waved back, weakly, stunned. He looked at Rachel.

"I couldn't have you come to the party without her," Rachel said, gently.

Elena looked gorgeous, in a short skirt and white tank top. "Rachel and I wanted you to know the party is also happening here. It'll be like another room."

He suddenly realized he hadn't said anything yet. Everyone must think I'm an idiot, he thought.

"Elena…wow…" His chest felt tight, as it always did when he saw her, as it did when he first laid eyes on her on the beach when he was thirteen. He wondered what his face looked like. He hoped it was happy.

"I apologize for my boyfriend," Elena told Rachel and Emily, "For a writer he oddly seems to be at a loss for words. And he also seems to have forgotten his manners." She held out her hand, "Hi, young lady to whom I haven't been introduced. I'm Elena Bosaic. Hi Rachel! "

Geoff recovered quickly. "Yes, I'm sorry. Elena, this is Emily Greiter. Emily, this is my Elena. Emily wanted to meet us and talk about writing."

Emily was about to say something, but Elena's expression turned stony.

"Emily? Geoff, you've never mentioned an _Emily_ before." There was a moment of uneasy silence, but Elena just couldn't keep up the deadpan expression, and burst into giggles.

"Okay, okay," Geoff grumbled as the women laughed.

"Let's leave them for a bit," Rachel said, taking Emily's arm.

"We'll talk more about writing later, Geoff," Emily said. "And Elena? It was wonderful meeting you. I wish I was going to be here for Geoff's birthday so we could talk." Elena waved, as Rachel and Emily went in search of Sean.

They were "alone". He touched the screen.

"I miss you." He choked out the words, because he was overwhelmed at seeing the one person he loved more than anything at a party all the way across the country, when he least expected it. Geoff felt like he had just won the lottery.

"Oh, I love you, baby," Elena said, and moved closer to the screen. Her short, edgy blonde haircut, green eyes, and full lips made him weak at the knees. And the short skirt just put him over the edge.

"It won't be long, now, Geoff," she murmured. He nodded, silently. She realized it was time to get his mind somewhere else.

"How is the party so far?"

He laughed. "Pretty good, some nice people. One very drunk girl who tried hitting on me, but otherwise pretty good."

Her calm acceptance of this revelation was a testament to the bond of trust they shared. Elena and Geoff had been together for five years, and had never been serious about anyone else. For a time that spooked both of their families, who worried that they had experienced only each other. But Geoff and Elena had a unique combination of passions in common, surfing and writing, which built a rich, solid foundation upon which the love affair itself was built.

Geoff had no illusions about the male attention Elena drew. She was almost the epitome of the classic, healthy, Southern California surfer girl. Yet Geoff adored the grace and sensitivity with which she handled it. Rather than being cold and disdainful, Elena was refreshingly modest and approachable. She had a knack for letting potential suitors know that she was unavailable without leaving hurt feelings behind. He was surprised when she told him once that she admired him for the same thing.

"How about your end? It seems like your party is just getting started."

She shrugged. "It's early here. Nobody drunk yet."

They both ended up just staring at each other longingly. Finally, Elena got up.

"Listen, baby, go have fun. Joanne and I have to mingle, since we set this shindig up."

He grinned, realizing how weird it must seem for people to see him just staring at a laptop in the middle of a party. But seeing Elena did make him feel 100% better.

"Thanks for doing this, baby," he said, seeing her tear up.

"I only wish I could be there now, but it won't be too long. See you soon, baby." She blew him a kiss.

"I love you, Elena. Good night."

He sighed and closed the laptop. Looking around the room, he saw Rachel standing with Finn, talking to Sean and Emily. He strode up and gave Rachel a huge bear hug, raising her off her feet and ignoring her surprised giggles as he whispered, "Thank you".

**XXXxxxx**

"So what do you think of some of the guys?" Megan asked as she met Amanda near the corner of the loft. "Any possibilities?"

Amanda shrugged noncommittally. "It's not a meat market, Meg. Let's just have a good time."

"I wonder if anyone told her that," Megan responded, indicating a blonde girl that seemed familiar, probably one of the freshman girls at NYADA. She had just had one man walk away from her and was sidling up to another. Everyone else appeared happy, but reasonably sober, while she seemed to have started long before the party had.

"Oh dear," Amanda said. "Well it doesn't seem to be that kind of party, I hope someone's taking care of her. They seem like great people, overall."

"They do. What about that one near the kitchen?" Megan continued, indicating a young man who also appeared slightly familiar in a have-passed-in-the-halls sort of way. Tall, slim yet strong, dark curly hair and pale skin; _gorgeous,_ Amanda thought, _but –_

"Irish, I think," she demurred. "I somehow seldom hit it off with my own kind."

"I'll try not to take that personally," a voice broke in from beside them, the young red-haired man she'd been told earlier was called Sean, standing there with his girlfriend Emily. He eased his jibe with a smile. "Not that it matters, of course."

Amanda chuckled. She was used to getting that sort of hard time. "Too much like family. Like you, no offense, and I'm sure you have your charms," she went on, nodding to Emily, "but you look far too much like my cousin John to have any appeal to me." Though the dark-haired man didn't look like any relative she recalled.

"I do?" Sean appeared to be intrigued, which seemed odd. "John, huh? Wonder if I could meet this guy."

Emily laughed. "Maybe you have a potential twin out there after all." She looked back at Amanda and Megan, who were puzzled by this exchange. "Sean has a childhood dream to play Antipholous of Syracuse in _The Boys from Syracuse_," she said. "Comes from being, well, a boy from Syracuse."

"Hey," Sean responded, in mock protest against her teasing. "It made a lot of sense at the time."

"Sorry, love." She gave him a light kiss. "Anyway, I'll leave you to interrogate her about this cousin."

Sean watched Emily head over to talk to Geoff again, then turned back to Amanda. "So does your cousin John like musicals?"

Amanda laughed at his eagerness. "Only the ones I'm in. He's studying Engineering at McGill. Sorry."

Sean shrugged, chuckling ruefully. "Worth a try."

**XXXxxxx**

"It's time for karaoke!" Finn announced, to enthusiastic cheers.

"Hosts first! Hosts first! " Everyone chanted. Rachel looked to Finn, who nodded at her to start. Amanda joined her, by the mikes.

"Amanda Connolly graciously agreed to help out on this," Rachel said. She paused, looking down for a moment, then spoke.

"I'm happier right now than I've ever been in my life," she said quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear, "So this song might seem a bit out of place." Finn looked concerned/intrigued. "But it was only a few months ago that I felt at my lowest, when I had to seriously consider the possibility of never seeing the love of my life again." She regretted seeing the pain on Finn's face at that moment, but it was only fleeting; he smiled reassuringly. "One night I was trying to study when this song came on the radio, and seemed to say exactly how I was feeling. You see, Emmylou Harris wrote it after losing the love of her life, Gram Parsons. Performing it helps me see how far I have come." She looked directly at Finn then. "How far _we_ have come." And she smiled.

A soft acoustic guitar and electric piano quietly started, accompanied by a pedal steel. Rachel put all the sweetness she could into her soprano to do the lyrics justice:

_**I don't want to hear a love song**_

_**I got on this airplane just to fly**_

_**And I know there's life below me**_

_**But all that you can show me**_

_**Is the prairie and the sky**_

A bass and drums joined in:

_**And I don't want to hear a sad story**_

_**Full of heartbreak and desire**_

_**The last time I felt like this**_

_**I was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire**_

_**And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn**_

_**I watched it burn, I watched it burn. **_

Amanda joined her as the gorgeous chorus began, her strong alto holding Rachel up, helping her reach even higher. People were swaying, caught up in the sweep.

_**I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham**_

_**I would hold my life in his saving grace.**_

_**I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham**_

_**If I thought I could see, I could see your face.**_

Strings dominated now, soaring like a young hawk over the prairie:

_**Well you really got me this time**_

_**And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive.**_

_**I have come to listen for the sound**_

_**Of the trucks as they move down**_

_**Out on ninety five**_

_**And pretend that it's the ocean**_

_**Coming down to wash me clean, to wash me clean**_

_**Baby do you know what I mean**_

The tears came then, a rush of emotion, and Amanda tearily joined her on the huge, holy finale. She felt as if she had been taken over by an angel, her voice an instrument of its will:

_**I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham**_

_**I would hold my life in his saving grace.**_

_**I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham**_

_**If I thought I could see, I could see your face.**_

And her gaze was fixed on Finn through the tears as she repeated the line, only for him:

_**If I thought I could see, I could see your face.**_

And through the applause, and the hug she gave Amanda, and Finn's crushing embrace and kiss, Rachel realized what Marge must have felt, losing her Nigel forever, and how blessedly fortunate she was to have been given another chance.

"I cannot, will not, _ever_, lose you again," she whispered, vehemently, in his ear. And even though she knew each of them had made similar promises before, only to break them, Rachel also knew there would be no more chances to accept the fact that their lives were meant to be spent together. They could not selfishly squander what Marge, so pitilessly denied, would have given anything to have.

Finn finally broke the embrace, saying "Showtime". He went up to the mike.

"Just so you know," he told them, "Rachel and I didn't tell each other what songs we were going to sing. This one is a song that I played a lot when we were apart, but it's a happy, hopeful song, so it's a present for her." Rachel clapped, beaming. They had been doing this a lot lately, giving each other songs as "just cuz" presents, re-establishing the rich, personal language that connected them so deeply.

Finn started moving to the opening, an acoustic guitar, drums and bass in an irresistible, shuffling beat, then stepped to the mike. His eyes were shut, his head shaking to-and-fro, as he sang the first lines:

_**Trouble...**_

_**Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble**_

_**Trouble been doggin' my soul since the day I was born**_

_**Worry...**_

_**Worry, worry, worry, worry**_

_**Worry just will not seem to leave my mind alone**_

Strings entered, and his eyes opened, with a wide smile as he looked directly at Rachel:

_**We'll I've been...**_

_**Saved by a woman**_

_**I've been...**_

_**Saved by a woman**_

_**I've been...**_

_**Saved by a woman**_

_**She won't let me go**_

_**She won't let me go now**_

_**She won't let me go**_

_**She won't let me go now **_

Rachel shook her head no, mouthing "No I won't", and he closed his eyes again, head tilted back in ecstasy:

_**Trouble...**_

_**Oh, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble**_

_**Feels like every time I get back on my feet **_

_**She come around and knock me down again**_

_**Worry...**_

_**Oh, worry, worry, worry, worry**_

_**Sometimes I swear it feels like this worry is my only friend **_

Smiling again, eyes open, eyes boring into her like his did that first prom, as the song moved to its jazzy, swinging ending, Finn almost scat-sang the lyrics, in little rushes, but getting softer and softer:

_**We'll I've been saved...**_

_**By a woman**_

_**I've been saved...**_

_**By a woman**_

_**I've been saved...**_

_**By a woman**_

_**She won't let me go**_

_**She won't let me go now**_

_**She won't let me go**_

_**She won't let me go now**_

_**Oh..., Ahhhh...**_

_**Ohhhh**_

_**She good to me now**_

_**She give me love and affection**_

_**She good to me now**_

_**She give me love and affection**_

_**I said I love her **_

_**Yes I love her**_

_**I said I love her**_

_**I said I love...**_

_**She good to me now**_

_**She good to me**_

_**She good to me **_

_**Mmmmmmm...**_

_**Mmmmmmm...**_

_**Mmmmmmm...**_

He didn't remember stopping and Rachel flying into his arms, or the appreciative applause. All he ever remembered of that moment was a profound sense of rightness with the world, as it slowly materialized again about them.

**XXXxxxx**

As Finn and Rachel embraced each other, around them things quieted down. Once they separated, the karaoke seemed to have stalled almost as soon as it began; the vocal quality would have made the hosts' two songs hard acts to follow even without the emotional confessional aspect, and as it was everyone was reluctant to go next. People were nudged, there were murmurings, but even as Rachel looked encouragingly around the room, there seemed to be no takers.

Finally Morris tossed his head and stepped forward. "No need for the microphone or the machine, I think," he said, turning with a flourish. His singing partners were elsewhere in the room, but this was something they had done before, and they would respond. He started, singing _a capella_, his strong tenor voice cutting through the minor chatter that had sprung up.

_**Meet me tonight, I'll buy the first round...**_

He paused, and Amanda stepped forward with the next line, slightly higher.

_**I know a little place that you might not have found**_

Megan came in with her line as she walked from another corner to join them, her voice higher still.

_**It looks down on the city from the underground**_

And all three came together in a clearly practiced harmony.

_**This is our station in the heart of town**__._

They started clapping a beat, encouraging the others to keep time for them. It was a soft song, but with a lively beat, and while they had all been moved by Rachel and Finn's emotion-laden and near-autobiographical solos, this was still a party. It needed a party song. The three of them loved this one, and enjoyed being able to introduce it to people and show off a little.

Megan took the first verse:

_**Leave the weather at the door, leave the rush out on the street,  
Lay down your tools, take the weight off your tired feet,  
Draw up a chair, strike up a little craic,  
If you've had a lousy day, get the monkey off your back. **_

Morris came in next, miming outrageously along with the words:

_**Some dressed for volume, everything's turned up loud,  
Its a designer's nightmare standing out in this crowd,  
With leathers mixed with tweed, pinstripe with polka dot,  
It makes no difference in this melting pot. **_

The others were getting roused, clapping happily along, and the three juniors exchanged grins before settling back into their harmony, for the full chorus this time, faster.

_**Meet me tonight, I'll buy the first round,**_

_**I know a little place that you might not have found,**_

_**It looks down on the city from the underground,**_

_**This is our station in the heart of town.**_**  
**  
Amanda's turn now, stepping forward from the other two:

_**They're talking business in the corner, politics at the bar,  
While the boy is bringin' the house down with his electric guitar,  
She's going crazy on the dance floor, she don't need no help,  
She's just getting on with being herself. **_

She did a little footwork at this last part, then spun and returned to Morris's side, who took over with her as occasional support.

_**I say hello, old timer, you're looking old against the new,  
Your sign is still glowing but the stains are showing through,  
You're crouched there in the shadows, all around you've watched them grow,  
But as long as you're still standing, I know where I can go,  
Where I can go! **_

By now the room was hopping, everyone clapping, some whistling.

_**Meet me tonight, I'll buy the first round,**_

_**I know a little place that you might not have found,**_

_**It looks down on the city from the underground,**_

_**This is our station in the heart of town.**_

****_**Meet me tonight, I'll buy the first round,**_

_**I know a little place that you might not have found.**_

They finished in close harmony, slowing, smiling at each other and at the applause the others gave them.

**XXXxxxx **

As they stepped away to let others sing, Amanda's eye was caught by movement at the side of the room – that blonde girl, looking definitely the worse for drink, standing far too close to the young dark-haired man Megan had pointed out earlier. He looked decidedly uncomfortable, outwardly polite but with a stance that screamed a wish to escape, and Amanda took pity on him. She was an expert in getting rid of jackasses of both genders, she could help him out.

"So how was I, darling?" she mock-simpered as she went over to them, then turned precisely to line up next to the man, facing the boozed-up blonde. She leaned into him, and appreciated the shift in his stance to accommodate her. She smiled at the blonde. "And you are?"

The blonde simply rolled her eyes and left, quickly enough so she hopefully didn't hear the chuckles behind her. She went next to Finn's friends from Queen's College, Eli and Clement, but as she got close there was sudden whispering among the pair of them and they went to the karaoke machine.

"Thank you," the man said, moving to sit. "I was quite at a loss to know how to handle her. Anne's on the prowl tonight, apparently they've tried to tell her that she's crashed the wrong sort of party, but she's not listening." He nodded. "I'm Patrick."

"Amanda." She sat down with him, as Eli started to sing the Thin Lizzy number "Cowboy Song".

"That was a lovely song, I enjoyed that very much. Though I don't know it."

"It's by a Canadian band, Spirit of the West. Celtic-style folk rock. One of my cousins sent me their CD a few years ago, and I was able to interest Morris and Megan in that piece."

"Oh, you've sung that before?" Patrick's tone was serious, but his expression was subtly teasing. Amanda breathed, slowly, letting her energy ebb as she came down from performance mode and settled deeper into quiet conversation. He seemed like a nice guy, worth taking it down a few notches to talk with.

"No, of course not," she replied with a small impish smile. "We're telepathic, haven't you heard?" And indeed some of their classmates did joke that the three of them formed the "M hive mind".

"I thought that was a vicious rumor."

"Aren't they all." They laughed together, lightly. "But yes, we've worked on that one a bit, we like the harmonies, and the style." She started tapping her foot a little, as the Thin Lizzy song switched into high gear. She liked the energy. But she also liked being quiet like this, when she could, and when there was someone good to be quiet with.

Patrick took note of her tapping, and they shared a smile. "An older take on that style, but no less good," he commented.

"Well you can't really take the Irish out of the girl," Amanda said, then blushed as she heard her own words and thought how they could be taken. She rarely left herself so open to innuendo, though fortunately Patrick let it go with a glance and started talking about other Celtic-rock fusion bands and what appealed about the musical style and attitude. Not superficially either, this was a genuine interest for both of them, and Amanda resolved to not cheapen the conversation by namedropping her oldest brother's acquaintance with members of the Dropkick Murphys. Of course this connection did mean she had heard a lot of their music, and even more from similar bands, and she was happily surprised at stumbling across someone who could discuss these styles to such depth with her.

Eli and Clement finished, and they both joined in with applause, for them specifically and in general, as the party switched back to recorded music for now. The drunk blonde's proximity to the karaoke machine might have had something to do with that, or perhaps not.

"Can I get you a drink?" Patrick asked her. "While I get one for myself."

"Just water, thanks." Amanda met his curious look with a smile. "It's still early yet, I like to stick to water until I know what sort of party it is."

"This isn't going to turn into a drunken mess, if that's what you're worried about. They're not that kind of people." He chuckled ruefully as she raised her eyebrow at him, inclining her head to the direction Anne had gone. "Well, not the ones who were invited."

"Actually I was thinking more about whether there will be much dancing. I may need my reflexes soon." Serious social dancing, she meant; the usual party jumping around and grinding wasn't her thing, and could be done by any inebriated fool, but the general sense she had of the people there was more impromptu art than impromptu orgy. There was some dancing now, though nothing fancy, and too much alcohol would be counterproductive for both dance and music.

Patrick returned her smile. "Water it is, then."

In his absence Amanda stayed where she was, looking around quietly, checking in on her friends and others. Megan was talking animatedly to the Queen's College musicians, one of whom looked potentially interested; Morris was making the rounds, probably still hoping to "casually" talk to Kurt; and it did seem like someone was trying to take care of the blonde, Anne, sitting her down with what was hopefully some coffee.

Eventually Patrick returned with her water, and it appeared he had some for himself as well, which was an interesting sign. They started talking again where they had left off, about Celtic influence in popular music, and she felt it easy and comfortable. But though this was enhanced by their shared Irishness, she wasn't getting a "family" feel at all, quite the contrary.

A new song started shortly, not one she was familiar with but she liked the style, smooth, steady beat with more of the folk-rock sensibility they'd been discussing. Patrick put his cup down and turned to her, his head inclined towards the center of the room, where a few people milled around, some shimmying to the beat. "Shall we?" He stood, his hand held out to her, his look a little challenging, and Amanda realized she had found another serious social dancer.

She took a last small sip of water and put her own cup down. "Love to," she said, rising and putting her hand in his, letting him escort her to an open patch of floor. She wasn't sure quite what this dance would be, though – standard 4/4 time, character a little swing like but too slow for most styles... her nerves came alive and she observed him intently. She wouldn't ask, let him lead what he would.

_**I met a man whose brother said he knew a man who knew the Oxford girl**_

_**I met a man whose brother said he knew a man who knew the Oxford girl**_

His hand holding hers moved to the rhythm, one two three four... then changed to one two, three-and-four, five-and-six. And he stepped back and to the side as he led her forward.

West Coast Swing. Fun, didn't need much space, good for parties... but not that common around there, a challenge then. And the song was pretty fast for it, not that this would stop her. She turned into him as she passed by, then met his eyes, sharing a challenging smile as she finished the anchor step, her left leg sweeping out, five-and-six.

_**Is it true what you hear, did he do it out of fear**_

_**Was the day drawing near when the child would start to show**_

Forward again, turning in-then-out in a spin, her shoulder-length hair just long enough to brush against him lightly as it fanned out. Yes, she knew how to do this, and he knew that she knew. Then another anchor, five-and-six, before he enlarged the steps and started on some more interesting moves.

_**Was it rage or shame, the damage to his name**_

_**Or something worse, does anybody know**_

_**Did she pay the price for making them look twice**_

_**Like a glimpse of paradise across a dull and bitter land**_

_**Did she pass them by, did she dare to meet their eye**_

_**Did she scorn them all and did they understand**_

Some complex passes, turns, holds, change of hand to shadow position, Amanda now moving in sync with him by feel alone. His head was down, close to hers, their hips rolling together in the character of the dance, back-and-forth... and another sense came into play as his scent entered her awareness, enough to have her miss it as he spun her out.

She added an extra spin at the end, showing off and having fun, her movement precise so she was back in alignment with their hands rejoining for the next step. Her eyes flicked up to his face, seeing the light in his eyes, his enthusiasm and energy, just as she felt it coming from his movement.

Then forward again, one two... and his arms around her waist, caging her for forward-and-back, then release to fan out, five-and-six. And seven-and-eight, nine-and-ten, spinning.

Amanda took advantage of the freedom he offered on the next passes to dress the moves up more, foot sweeps and lingering glances, hip swivels and flourishes that he echoed in response. She even stroked down his arm as she went by, embellishing the move and tightening their contact.

_**A grief to her father – did she really leave him**_

_**a lover to her brother – yes we all believe him**_

_**temptation to her betters – no better than she should be**_

_**unfaithful to her lover – he always knew she would be**_

Freeze, hitting the break. Oh, he was good. And dancing with him felt so, so good.

_**she said**_

_**I never had a chance to prove them wrong**_

_**My time was short, the story long**_

_**No I never had a chance to prove them wrong**_

_**It's always them that write the song**_

It had been a long time since she had felt so completely alive, in tune with all her senses and with someone else. To be honest, she had never really felt quite like that before, not with someone. He turned her inwards on the next move, them both stepping back with his arms around her, and even the song faded into the background, her dancing based solely on feeling him move next to her. Back, stall, repeat... a small part of her brain noted that this combination was new, but it didn't matter, she was too in tune with his lead and how he guided their momentum to have to recognize anything. She rocked into him, feeling his hand slide down her back to her waist, and Amanda felt she could dance like this forever, even as she fanned back out, away again, their joined hands the only obvious link.

One two... pull into a whip, his hand on her back, feeling his body close to hers. She had always loved to dance, but it had never been like this. Never feeling so connected to her partner, that the movements were of one person rather than two. (Even when she hadn't been dancing with her brother.)

Their feet interleaved, their frame still holding as they turned around and around together, right feet rooted as they pivoted, fast. No need to spot, despite the speed, not with Patrick there for her to focus on and her for him. As if together they were still and the world around them was what was moving.

_**I met a man whose brother said he knew a man who knew the Oxford girl.**_

They finished with a flourish as the music tapered off, Patrick spinning her rapidly and then stepping back to lower her hand as their movement stilled. Then the world broke back in, their friends and the other people around them applauding, reminding her that others were there, helping her realize that they had mostly been watching.

Amanda felt breathless from the dance, but knew it wasn't from the exertion. She looked back at Patrick, meeting his eyes as he finished briefly bowing over her hand in acknowledgement and thanks for the dance. She gave him the traditional slow nod in response, but there was more in her eyes than that. And losing the touch of his hand and that sense of connection as they released their dance hold and attitude – it felt like a wound. Like a limb severing, or a sense lost.

The next song started, something very uptempo, and they parted as the others started moving around again. There was time to talk later, Amanda reasoned, and she could use a breather, time to let her impressions settle. Her heart was racing too fast for her to hear it clearly.

**XXXxxx**

Megan was having a good time talking to Eli. He had opened the conversation by saying she could pass for the daughter of Phil Lynott, the Thin Lizzy vocalist and bassist, original performer and co-writer of the song that he and Clement had sung; while it seemed a little contrived, she decided she didn't really care, he seemed nice. Her subsequent admittance of her partiality for bass players appealed to him in turn, and they chatted away.

The music changed back to karaoke for a while as groups took over the mikes for some party songs. The B-52's "Rock Lobster" was popular, and then Finn had to laugh as a mixed group of guys did a raucous rendition of "Finnegan's Wake". They probably had no idea of the significance of that title to him, he reasoned, and yeah he wasn't dead. It was good to see everyone having such a great time, and strange to think he was once so sure he'd never fit in here.

"Great party," Sean said, breaking into where Finn and Geoff stood by the drinks table. He helped himself to a beer, and clinked his to both of theirs. "Here's to our girls," he toasted, and drank.

"I'll drink to that," Finn replied, and he and Geoff both shared in the toast.

"It's good to meet another long-distancer," Sean went on, nodding at Geoff. "Hell, by your standards our distance isn't long at all."

"I'm sure any distance is still a challenge," Geoff replied. "Only thing harder –"

"– would be not doing it," Sean chimed in. "I know."

"Do you have trouble sleeping too?" Geoff asked, and Finn could hear the note of wistfulness in his voice. Even talking to Elena earlier had just taken the edge off, it seemed.

"Oh, you do? Man, that sucks, to have that on top of everything else." Sean responded. "No, I sleep fine. Miss her in the mornings, though, I think my subconscious conjures her up." He flashed a happy look over to the side of the room, where Emily was. "My Scheherazade." Then he quickly added, 'But without the death sentence".

The other men smiled at this reference to what made Emily so special to Sean.

"It's good to know there are others in the same boat, I guess," Sean went on. "Shared pain is lessened, right? And the story of your dramatic return," he went on, nodding at Finn, "whatever truth there may be in rumor, well, it's a hard act to follow."

"What, like you should have stayed with her?" Finn asked sceptically. "It's not the same at all, you'd have to give up NYADA." It had been hard to come back, but what he had been giving up hadn't been his own dreams, quite the contrary.

"No, more like she thought _she_ could have done it too, or somehow managed to make going to NYU work out. She's got impossible standards for herself. Fictional ones."

This sounded familiar to Geoff; he'd regretted not having gotten into Berkeley so he could stay with Elena, certainly.

"She didn't know I knew at the time, but once she had to stay in Syracuse – I know she was afraid she was losing everything at once, NYU and me both," Sean said. "No way in hell I was going to let that happen, though." He drank a bit more of his beer. "No way was I losing my dream over money."

"Your dream isn't Broadway?" Finn asked.

"In my dream I have a good Broadway career, _and_ listen to Em tell me stories for the rest of my life." He grinned. "I'll work just as hard for the latter as the former. Harder, actually, if it ever needs it. And she thinks I'm flattering her, but I don't understand my roles properly until she explains the nuances to me."

"Separation is temporary," Geoff stated, something he and Elena always remembered. She was coming for his birthday, and then it would be less than two months until they were both home again. "Are you going back to Syracuse for the summers?"

"This year, yes. I'll be trying for jobs next year though, but so will she – the good jobs in both of our fields are all here. Grad school, too, for her, or so is the plan. Actually, Geoff, since you're at NYU, I'd appreciate a connection, if you could keep your eyes open for a lit prof that might be good for Emily to work with."

Geoff agreed, happy to have a way where he could help the other couple, and the conversation moved on to other things: music, beer, cheap deals on food at various New York diners.

"Well, I think we're going to turn into a pumpkin soon," Sean said as he finished his beer. "I know the night is still young and all that, at least for the big city, but Em's only here for the weekend. I love showing her off, but I also love taking her home."

"Back to the dorms?" Finn asked.

"My roommate's away tonight. Conveniently." Sean chuckled. "Conveniently by arrangement. I just want to sing my girl a song, then we'll go." He nodded to the others, then moved away to investigate the music situation.

By this time they were back to recorded music, with a few requests waiting, but Sean found his choice on the karaoke list and went to talk to Emily and some of the others while he waited his turn.

The music cued up finally finished, the karaoke machine came back on, and the party noise quieted a bit as Sean started to sing Van Morrison's "Moondance". People stepped back from the center of the room as a NYADA couple started to dance to the music, a slow foxtrot. Emily stood in a group with Morris and Megan, their conversation muted as she listened, the dancing pair weaving around her briefly. She blushed at some of the more direct lyrics, but she was clearly happy. She and Sean lingered a little while afterwards, talking to Rachel and Finn and to Geoff, then discreetly left.

**XXXxxx **

It was growing late, the party starting to wind down a little. Amanda took another pull at the beer in her hand and looked around. And there he was, Patrick, over by the corner table. As she looked at him he turned a little and met her eyes. She'd always thought those "time stand still" sayings were bull, before, or at least excessively poetical, but now... they looked at each other, for who knows how long, but even so she wished it wouldn't end, that the moment would freeze a little bit longer.

Hands poking at her waist made her jump, and she turned to find Morris. "Hey firecracker, are you slowing down yet?" he said, his energy a little forced, and that impression was all that stopped Amanda from clocking him right then. She looked back at Patrick, but he had moved over a few steps, and he wasn't looking at her any more.

She sighed, disappointed, though she really should just go talk to him. "Getting there," she answered, taking another drink. "Where's Meg?"

"Bathrooom. So, how's Bachelor Number Two? You seemed to be hitting it off earlier."

"Who –" she cut herself off. "He's _that_ Patrick?" The 'Bachelor Number Two' name was NYADA gossip-speak for the other young man who had been after Rachel, back in the fall, with Brody as 'Bachelor Number One' for the contest. Which of course had made perfect sense when a third guy showed up, though calling Finn 'Bachelor Number Three' thankfully didn't seem to have stuck. Brody was a classmate of Amanda's, and she had gotten to know Rachel after the contest, having heard Brody snipe at her in the hall with latent bitterness, but she hadn't paid much attention to who the other guy had been. Besides, Rachel had been so over the moon at Finn's return that it hadn't mattered.

"Yes. Kurt filled me in."

"Oh, so you did have a chance to talk to Kurt," Amanda said, still distracted as she looked for Patrick again. And a chill settled into her as she saw him, looking transfixed, but he wasn't facing her – he was looking over to the kitchen area, where Rachel stood. Rachel, who clearly didn't notice any of this, because she was happily smiling up at Finn next to her. Amanda pulled her eyes away, trying to ignore the twist she felt inside. She refocused on Morris. "How did that go?"

"Not as well as I would like. He's friendly, but he did mention the dreaded ex."

"As a warning? Boyfriend _quondam et futurus_?"

"Maybe."

"Ditch the Latin, 'Mand, does this look like a church?" Megan put in, joining them, one arm looping into each of theirs.

"It's Malory, not that it matters," Amanda answered. "Sorry, Mor," she said to Morris. "Still, if it's true it's worth knowing about." Morris shrugged.

"You two about ready to go?" Megan asked.

Amanda finished her beer. "Sure," she said, giving a last regretful look in Patrick's direction. "Let's say our goodbyes and head back."

**XXXxxxx **

It wasn't awfully late. The party had settled into a quiet, slowing rhythm. Kurt was with a few guests that were left, in chairs and the couch, engaged in quiet conversation. Clement, Ally, Eli and Geoff were on the fire escape, smoking and talking, and Anne had fallen asleep on their bed among the coats. Norah Jones was softly singing "Come Away With Me", and the kitchen area was empty.

Finn took advantage of the empty floor space and gathered Rachel into his arms to dance. It was like the prom, Rachel resting her head against Finn's chest, and him holding her close, simply swaying to the slow, beautiful music. They paid no attention to technique, when all they needed was the serenity of each other and the soothing music.

"I'm happy," he said. "This was a wonderful idea."

"I knew you'd be happy with me here, in New York." She pulled his face down for a kiss. "I knew we'd be happy together the day I met you." He pulled her closer in acknowledgement.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She looked up in surprise.

"You can tell me anything," she answered. It felt good to be moving with him and talking in this intimate manner. He had been so self-conscious about his dancing before that he rarely asked her.

"After I dropped you home from our first real date, at the bowling alley, I drove around town for awhile, thinking." He stopped dancing and tipped her face up. "I drove around, and thought about what it would be like being with you, that I could be happy with you. I even seriously considered taking you up on that offer to elope."

"You actually heard me when I said that? " She blushed, deeply embarrassed by the memory. Then she looked puzzled. "But you were still with Quinn, and knew about the baby, and went out with me only because you wanted me back in the Glee club." He pressed her close and started dancing again.

"I know. Maybe it was just me wanting desperately to be out of my insane situation." He kissed the top of her head. "But the point is, I actually envisioned us eloping and living happily together, even back then."

She sighed, smiling at the craziness of it all. "We've really been through a lot, haven't we, to get where we are now?"

"Yeah," Finn said and kissed the top of her head again. "But what amazes me more, is that you have always been right about us, from the very beginning."

"And don't you forget it, Finn Hudson," she ordered.

They danced, close, until the song ended, enjoying that quiet, exquisite moment, then went back happily to their hostly duties. Rachel joined the guests in the living room, while Finn went to check on Anne, only to find she had moved from the bed to the bottom of their closet, where she was snoring, blissfully. He got her a pillow and blanket, and made her comfortable. No point in waking her up, though he chuckled at what she might think when she woke up in the morning.

No problem. She could join them for breakfast. He was making the best pancakes in the world.

**A/N: **

**Lyrics for the songs are from:**

"**Boulder to Birmingham", by Emmylou Harris and Bert Danoff. **

"**Trouble", by Ray LaMontagne**

"**Our Station", performed by Spirit of the West, written by John Mann, Geoffrey Kelly, and J. Knutson.**

"**The Oxford Girl", performed by Oysterband, written by John Jones and Ian Telfer.**

**Reviews are always welcomed. **


	5. Chapter 5

Finn took Monday off from the garage, and accompanied Rachel into Manhattan so they could visit Professor John Sheets over at NYU after her morning class was finished.

"I met him while I was staying with Marge," he told Rachel. "He was Nigel's best friend, and he and his wife are very close friends to Marge. Maybe he can give us an idea what to do for her birthday, since we can't throw her a party."

"I think it's great how you've been making connections," she told him on the train. "Don't act so surprised; you've always been a good people person."

"Well. It helps having met Marge first," he said. "Jesus, she knows everybody."

It was true. Marge played the role of the world-weary waitress so well that it was easy to forget she was a highly-trained stage actress, and that her husband was equally respected in academic circles as a scholar of theatrical literature. They moved in some influential circles.

John Sheets was in his fifties, with longish, unruly gray hair. He capped the look with a rumpled corduroy jacket, complete with leather patches on the elbows. All that was missing was a pipe.

"Finn! Good to see you," he said warmly, ushering them into his cluttered office. "And you must be Rachel. Margaret has told me about you. Are you sure we can't steal you away from Carmen?" She blushed.

"How can I help you?"

They told him of their idea of a party for Marge's birthday, and how she had told them she didn't celebrate her birthday with parties. Sheets nodded understandingly.

"Margaret is a very private person in many ways," he said. "And much of that is driven by her grief," and, as if expecting a question, added, "Even after ten years."

"Does she do anything for her birthday at all?" Rachel asked. "We owe her so much, we just wanted to do something special."

Sheets could tell she wasn't being nosy, that she just wanted to understand.

"Yes, but I can't tell you exactly what it is," he answered, and Finn and Rachel nodded. "The fact is, she never had birthday parties as long as we have known her, even before Nigel died." They could see his face soften right then. Obviously he was savoring a treasured memory. "The reason was, Nigel always took her out on her birthday, to the theatre where they first met, and the two of them would have an elegant catered dinner right on the stage, after the nightly performance was done and everyone else had gone home."

Rachel and Finn looked at each other, reminded of another stage and another time.

"That's just…beautiful," she said. Then: "Do you know how they met?"

Sheets laughed.

"Oh yes. I was there." He leaned back in his chair, remembering.

"I had been at Tisch for a year, and when a tenure-track position in the Drama department opened up, I called Nigel and encouraged him to apply. He was teaching at the University of Leeds, and hated it. So when he did get the position here, my wife Mary and I decided to take him out on the town."

John and Nigel were best friends. They met at Oxford as undergrads; John was there on a Rhodes scholarship. They backpacked through Nepal the summer before graduate school (Nigel remained at Oxford, John went to Northwestern), and remained friends ever since.

"Nigel was a great admirer of the playwright Henrik Ibsen, so Mary and I took him to see an off-Broadway production of _Hedda Gabler_ at the Streiber theatre."

"The Streiber? I auditioned for _The Glass Menagerie_ there!" Rachel interjected, excitedly.

Sheets looked at her. "You didn't get the part, I hope." She shook her head, puzzled. "Good. That production was _awful_." He chuckled and she slowly grinned.

"This production hadn't received particularly good reviews. I suggested we see it more because the young actress playing the title role, Marge Johnson, had been trained at Tisch, and had garnered probably the only praise, faint as it was, from the critics. Nigel was excited to see the production despite the reviews. Are you familiar with the play? "

Finn and Rachel shook their heads.

"It's a about a bored, 19th Century aristocratic woman in a loveless marriage to an academic. He's a writer, and his position is threatened by a rival, a recovering alcoholic, who happens to be a former lover of Hedda's. In the play, as her life unravels, she does some unspeakable things, namely manipulating the rival to fall off the wagon, then convincing him to commit suicide—even giving him the pistol. And she commits suicide herself at the end." He read Finn and Rachel's faces, and laughed. "No, no, it's a classic, really!"

"These days, Hedda is portrayed as a woman whose choices are dictated by a patriarchal society. She destroys the rival because he threatens her husband's position in society, and that is how women's self-worth was determined in those days. And her suicide is seen as an act of will, the only measure of control she has over her life." He leaned forward. "But the reviews hinted that this production skirted on the sexist, that Hedda as a victim wasn't being given enough weight. Nigel was intrigued, so we went to see it.

"We had tickets in the third row center. Nigel looked dapper, in a nice three-piece suit. His hair was blonde, slightly long, with a short-cropped beard, and, from the moment Margaret appeared on stage, he sat, mesmerized. She wore a long black, silk dress, with her red hair pulled back and up in a severe bun, which made her fair skin stand out. But it wasn't just her looks that absorbed him. Nigel sat forward on the edge of his seat the entire performance, paying very close attention. I asked him during intermission what he thought, and he just said her performance was unexpected and extraordinary. Then he went to see if we could get permission to go backstage after the performance. Being NYU/Tisch professors, we had no problem getting the stage manager's approval.

"I had never seen him quite like this before. All through the rest of the play he remained transfixed, still on the edge of his seat. We had seen many plays together at Oxford, and he usually sat back in his seat, taking it in, stroking his beard. But not this time. And during the curtain call he started to fidget, impatient to get backstage. "

Rachel smiled. "She made quite an impression, then?"

Sheets nodded, and Finn and Rachel could see him tearing up.

"When we finally made it backstage, Margaret was dressed in her street clothes, a simple blue dress, and her red hair was down below her shoulders. We came up and I introduced ourselves.

"She smiled, and asked if we had enjoyed the performance, but I could tell she was surprised to see people coming backstage for this particular production. Nigel spoke up, after taking one of her hands:

"'Your interpretation was extraordinary. Definitely not a modern take. You took Hedda's character at…' He paused, searching for the right word, and I saw Margaret hanging on his words, intrigued, '…face value. Not a victim of social mores, but what she appears to be: a narcissistic, manipulative monster. I've seen that done before, but not very often. It usually falls flat because it is too easy, too obvious, and therefore almost impossible to do convincingly. You, however, managed to give her repellant character a depth and subtlety I've never seen, without the usual sexual politics. What was your thinking behind it?'"

"What did she say?" Rachel asked.

John laughed. "She didn't say anything at first, but looked down at her hand, which was still in his. And when she looked back up at him, she wore this extraordinary expression, one of an intense, personal curiosity, as if she had just met the most interesting person on the planet. And she saw the same look reflected back at her. The effect was electric. All of us felt it. Mary slipped her hand into mine and squeezed it, almost involuntarily, she told me later.

"Then she dazzled him with a beautiful smile, saying, 'I'd love to discuss it, especially since my director has never quite gotten where I was coming from.' Then she put her hand on her stomach. "Could we do it over dinner? I'm ravenous'. Nigel looked to us, and Mary, realizing what had just happened, told them to go ahead."

Finn and Rachel could see John was getting emotional. "They were married a year later," he said softly, "And they never stopped looking at each other like that. Margaret used to say Nigel somehow possessed the key to her art, as well as her heart. She told Mary and me that bringing Nigel that night was the best birthday present she ever received."

"Oh my God," Rachel gasped, "They met on her birthday?"

"No, it was the next day. But maybe now you know why she might be a little sensitive about it."

Finn and Rachel nodded.

"Mary and I are very protective of Margaret," John said, "She is one of the most beautiful people we have ever known, and Nigel loved her more than life itself."

Then he surprised them.

"But we also think you two and Geoff and Elena have been a great help to her. She sees what she had with Nigel in your relationships as well. It's helping her come to grips with her own life, I think. We've been suggesting carefully-selected men to her over the years, and, bless her heart, she hasn't told us to bugger off. They never seemed to get beyond a dinner or two, though. She just wasn't ready then. The way she's been acting lately, however, suggests she might be ready to open up more, thanks to you. Maybe there is another key to her art and heart out there, and maybe she'll be ready to accept it if she opens up even more." He stood and put his hands on each of their shoulders. "I can't tell you how she celebrates her birthday, but I could, maybe, tell you the name of her favorite restaurant."

Rachel winked. "Sure. We just might, someday, want to have dinner with her, right?"

"Exactly."

Finn walked Rachel back to NYADA before getting on the train.

"We need to be very careful here," he told her on the way.

"I know," Rachel said. "Listen, I'll be late getting home. After my afternoon classes, I'll go down to the Village and check out the restaurant—don't worry, I'll be discreet. Kurt has been invited to dinner with Isabelle, so it'll just be us. I'll bring some pizza home for dinner, okay?"

He kissed her. "Okay."

**XXxxxx **

Marge eyed the clock on her nightstand. It said three-thirty. That meant seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. She lifted the little vial on the chain around her neck, kissed Nigel, and lay back in the warm bed, enjoying the darkness her heavy curtains provided. Children in the neighborhood were getting home from school, and she listened to their voices.

She and Nigel had no children. The doctors never figured out why. Nigel's sperm were tested and seemed healthy enough, and in adequate supply, so she presumed the problem was with her. The two of them took it in stride, however, and were considering adopting an older child when Nigel fell ill, and she was just too overwhelmed to follow through.

She decided to get up, and pulled a black robe over her emerald-green, silk pajamas. First things first. On the record shelf in the living room, an LP caught her fancy: Benjamin Britten conducting Mozart's Symphony #40, with the English Chamber Orchestra. She hadn't played that particular version in years (they had several), mainly because Nigel wasn't fond of how Britten included all of the original repeats in the second movement. "It's beautiful and all, luv," he used to tell her, "But it's too bloody long. It throws the whole balance off." He stopped complaining, though, when he realized that every time she played that particular record, she wanted to make love to him.

Playing it after he died was too painful. But for some reason that afternoon, she just needed those damned repeats.

Then it happened.

In the kitchen her hand reached out, almost on its own, to grab the kettle. The kitchen filled with the voices of children and birdsong. She found herself making tea instead of coffee, for the first time in ten years.

**XXXxxxxx **

The morning sunlight streamed in through the window, as it always did, splaying across their bed. She cradled his head on her breast, hoping the new thick flannel pajamas, the socks she knitted, and her naked body were enough to keep him warm. He was always cold now. Thank God his hair and beard had grown back; it softened the severity of his emaciation. She grieved at his wasting away before her eyes, but marveled at the spirit which still burned brightly in those beautiful blue eyes. His body may have become almost unrecognizable, his voice more a whisper than anything else, but there was no mistaking the soul that dwelt within it.

Marge no longer panicked when it seemed like he stopped breathing. The long battle inexorably slowed down his metabolism, so at times his chest barely moved, especially when he slept, as he was doing now. All she had to do was brush his forehead gently with the back of her hand to feel his warmth, to know that he only rested, and hadn't slipped away from her while she dozed, exhausted. There were times that she regretted giving the nurse from the hospice the weekend off; caring for Nigel was overwhelming at times.

He no longer snored, one of the strange side effects of the pain medication. Instead, Nigel muttered. Most of it Marge didn't understand: in his sleep he reverted to the strong Devon accent of his childhood, not the one she was familiar with, the dialect tempered by his Oxford years and the time spent in the States. Often he seemed to be having conversations with his beloved late "Granfer" –grandfather—who took the boy into the fields of the family farm in Devon at summer harvest time. Nigel used to lovingly describe the noon dinners in the fields, with a huge red-and-white checked cloth, and sandwiches of thick-cut ham and fresh fruit with clotted cream, and playing on the old wreckage of the German Dornier bomber that a Spitfire shot down over Torquay during the Battle of Britain, which glided and crashed, burning fiercely, into a copse of trees near the main pasture.

His eyelashes flickered against her breast.

"Hullo, luv," he said faintly, smiling as he always did when he laid eyes on her.

"Hey, baby,' she said softly. Her hands caressed his hair as she kissed him.

He tried cuddling closer, breaking her heart at the amount of effort it required. His hand rested on her pubic mound, fingers softly smoothing the curly red hair.

"That feels good," she murmured, kissing the top of his head, sad because that was as much desire he could summon now. She cursed the fucking disease that cruelly sapped his vitality more and more each day. Eventually, his fingers stopped moving. She felt his lips soundlessly say "I love you" on her breast.

"Are you warm enough?" He nodded, eyes closed, still smiling.

She decided to get up. Before, he was the early riser, making the tea and bringing her first cup of the day to bed. Then he made his breakfast because she worked late at the theatre while he usually had to teach morning classes. A soft-boiled egg in an egg cup and toast. A cheddar cheese sandwich, an apple, a couple of McVities chocolate biscuits and a thermos of tea for lunch. And a kiss for her before leaving. His stomach couldn't handle eggs now, so she made breakfast these days: tea and toast with strawberry jam and real butter.

"I'll go make tea," she said, kissing him, then pulled on a robe and headed towards the kitchen. She turned to see his eyes, open now, bright blue jewels against the pillow, taking her in. She paused, because he loved looking at her, and also because the pure, simple love of his gaze helped her forget, even if just for a moment, that the light in his eyes would soon be extinguished forever, and that she would have to go on living in this world, alone.

"Tea sounds lovely." His voice sounded stronger then, the smile still sweet, and she waited until his eyes closed again before she made her way to the kitchen.

Marge put on the kettle and put bread in the toaster. On the tray she made sure there was enough sugar: both of them usually took their tea with milk and two sugars, but lately she added an extra teaspoon to Nigel's in some effort to give him energy. He told her he liked having his tea "as sweet as me Maggie." She smiled. No one else was ever allowed to call her "Maggie", only him.

She looked out at the neighborhood in the late spring sunshine and contemplated taking Nigel out later in his wheelchair to enjoy the fresh air. He barely weighed anything, so the only issue would be bundling him up enough to keep him warm.

She remembered the moment.

The kettle had begun to whistle when she felt it: soft, almost imperceptible, a whispy sensation, as if his beard were brushing her neck. She responded automatically, as always, with intense, erotic shivers. For one brief second she thought Nigel had gotten up and joined her in the kitchen. Then it dissipated, giving way to an unnatural silence, a profound stillness. And she just knew that he was gone. Her hand, almost with a mind of its own, turned off the burner under the kettle, as a choking, heartbroken sob welled up from her very core, forcing her to steady herself by holding on to the stove. She should never have left him alone, oh God. It took an immense act of will for her to make it down the hall to the bedroom.

He was on his side, just as she left him, facing the doorway, eyes mercifully closed, smiling, the smile that he reserved only for her. She had been his last thought.

Somehow she managed to climb into bed, and held him in her arms, softly moaning, trying to will her warmth, her life force, into his body. She tried to bargain with God to exchange her life for his, begged, pleaded, wept, but her tears only soaked his hair, and the warmth slowly fled his body until he was both cold and still. The rest of her life stretched bleakly before her, bereft.

She thought about joining him.

Eventually, Marge got up and made tea, for what she thought would be the last time-milk, three sugars. And she scattered his ashes over his farm on a fine summer's day, keeping only a few of them in a tiny sealed vial on a chain around her neck.

And she told him goodbye, that she loved him, and that she had decided to live after all, and knew he would understand.


	6. Chapter 6

_O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,_

_How can we know the dancer from the dance?_

The Yeats quote lingered in Amanda's mind that Wednesday morning as she stood by the dance rehearsal room door, watching Patrick. Dancing with him at the party had been incredible, she had never felt so completely in sync with another person before. Everything he had led, she had been able to follow, even moves she didn't know. And she had been able to embellish, too, putting her own expression into their dancing, a communication so fundamental it had been almost primal.

_Scratch 'almost'_, she thought as she watched him dancing, making even the simplest steps graceful, and the hard moves effortless. _What form he has. And what's that saying about a vertical expression of a horizontal desire...?_

She heard measured steps come down the hallway, and she moved aside, not wanting to be caught staring. Instead she looked down at the book she was carrying. She had been on her way to the lounge, theoretically.

"Ms. Connolly, I trust you are well," the familiar voice intoned, and Amanda looked up, startled.

"Madame Tibideaux. Yes, all well. Thank you," Amanda managed to reply.

"Until this afternoon, then." With that the Dean was gone, her voice still briefly audible as she talked to someone else around the corner. Amanda vowed that she would kill her number in Mme. Tibideaux's performance workshop that afternoon, make her so impressed with her performance that having been loitering around the hallways would seem unimportant.

If she could manage to get her mind off a certain freshman. Or at least deal with how she was feeling about him. That dance had made her feel so connected to him, but had it been to the dancer himself, or was that just the dance? Once it was over, she had thought they would talk later that night, and they'd certainly looked at each other, but Morris had distracted her and when she had looked back to Patrick she had found him gazing across the room to where Rachel was. She sighed. She felt a connection to the dancer, of that she was sure, increasingly so now as she covertly watched him move. You could tell a lot about a person by how they moved. But it seemed that he had instead been only connecting to the dance. Or had he?

She failed to notice softer steps behind her, until a voice in her ear said "_Boo._" She jumped.

"Meg," she hissed, turning away from the door again to see Megan's smug face beside her, with Morris's blond head a few steps behind. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, since we're all usually in the lounge right now. Except," Megan went on, glancing through the window, "I really don't have to ask, do I?"

"I was on my way," Amanda stated, and that was sort of almost even true. She had deliberately gone that route to the lounge because she had wanted to see Patrick again, though. She hadn't seen him since leaving the party that night and she had started to wonder whether she had been imagining at least part of his effect on her. Seeing him dance again, however, that had brought it all back and then some. She walked a few steps towards the corner of the hallway, needing to ensure that they wouldn't be overheard by Patrick or the few others in the room. They hadn't noticed her watching quietly, but all bets were off with her friends there.

"Oh come on," Morris objected as he and Megan followed her. "We were at the party too. And we know you. You getting all quiet talking to someone – that's special."

"And that dance," Megan supplied, flipping her straight black hair over her shoulder.

"Ooh, that _dance_."

Amanda blushed a little. "It was quite the dance, wasn't it?" She smiled a little at the memory of it.

"_Quite_ the dance," Morris stressed. "With a hunk of a man."

Megan cocked her head at Amanda. "So, robbing the cradle and going after a freshman?" she asked archly, teasing a little, but Amanda frowned.

"Double standard, wanting the girl to be younger," she shot back. "Did anyone blink when Brody Weston went after a freshman?"

Morris shrugged. "Actually, you did. All three of us did."

"Okay, _we_ did," Amanda admitted, diverted. "But that's because he's a jackass, not because he's a junior."

"He's not that much of a jackass," Megan mused. "And he's less of one now."

"A little bit of a jackass is still too much jackass," Morris commented, quoting Amanda. "I'm not sure how your behavior right now is all that different from his, though."

"Well for one thing I'm staking out a public dance rehearsal room, not the dorm showers," Amanda said defensively.

"So you _are_ staking it out," Megan smirked, and Amanda groaned. "Gotcha, 'Mand."

"Okay, so I like him. And now I like him a whole lot more, just look at how he moves."

"So what's your issue?" Morris asked. "Patrick's unattached, go for it."

"Maybe it's too soon. He was writing a song to try to win another girl just a few months ago, that's serious stuff."

"A girl who is completely and thoroughly taken, he's never had her and he never will," Morris stated. "If Kurt was in that situation I wouldn't hold back."

"And you might scare him off anyway, like you were worried about," Amanda replied.

"Maybe. But his ex being still in the picture makes me very reluctant. At least you can't expect to be collateral damage."

"Just be his friend, Morris," Amanda counselled, her attitude softening as his issues distracted her from her own. "You're a great friend."

"You are," Megan chimed in. "Trust us, we'd know."

"And if the ex turns out to be the 'once and future' boyfriend, then you still have a friend," Amanda went on. "He seems like a good guy, way beyond mere not-a-jackass status."

Morris smiled weakly. "You mean there's more than just jackasses and non-jackasses?"

"There is an entire spectrum of non-jackasses out there." Amanda sighed, looking towards the rehearsal room door again. "And that one... that one is one of the best."

"Are you sure Patrick's not a jackass?" Megan teased.

"I'm never wrong about these things." Amanda saw Megan object, and looked pointedly at her. "All right, so my jackass detector can be a little overambitious. But it's never wrong about clearing someone. If I say someone's not a jackass, you can take it to the bank."

"But how many does it clear?" Morris asked. "Seriously?"

"You're not a jackass," Amanda told him. "Even right now when you're trying to pretend that you are."

"Any others? Straight guys that you're not interested in?"

"Finn isn't a jackass, and neither are Geoff and Sean. That party was pretty much jackass-free, actually. Quite the novelty, we need to spend more time with those people."

"Sure your detector wasn't on the blink as soon as you saw the hot guy? Or when you danced with him?" Morris smirked as he continued to needle Amanda.

"I'm not wrong."

"So why so reluctant?" Megan asked. "This stalkeresque shrinking violet behavior is not you."

"Maybe it's too soon for him. He was looking at her. Rachel."

"Maybe he needs a rebound first," Megan suggested.

"And do what Brody did to that Nielson girl?" Amanda groaned. "I don't want him to have a rebound, to hurt or be hurt by someone first. He's not the quick-rebound-relationship kind of person and I don't want him to become one or find out the hard way that he's not."

"Aww." Megan gave her a saccharine smile, and Amanda rolled her eyes and moved away from the wall.

"Come on," she said to the other two, then turned the corner – and froze when she saw Finn Hudson sitting on the bench outside the nearest classroom, easily within earshot. "Damn," she cursed under her breath, turning back, a sentiment echoed by Morris when he caught a glimpse himself.

Megan peered around the corner in turn, and grinned at her two friends. "I don't know what you're scared of, all you said about him was that he isn't a jackass," she commented. "I don't think he'll mind." The others glared at her, and she shrugged. "Hey, it is what it is."

"Stupid," Amanda muttered. She should have known better than to talk openly, but she wasn't used to holding back. And he didn't even go to NYADA, so he must be waiting for someone, probably Rachel. She looked back at Finn, who seemed to be studiously ignoring them. Too obvious for them to not have been overheard, and she had been talking about Patrick – and his interest in Rachel, aack – while Morris had been talking about Kurt, Finn's stepbrother.

All of the people they had been talking about would know. Know what they had said, and that they had been talking about them. Amanda closed her eyes for a moment, but on opening them again the reality was still there. She took deep breaths, gradually regaining control, and decided she had to make the best of it.

She hated the thought of being gossiped about. But Patrick wasn't a jackass, so there was more to be embarrassed about in being stupid about her feelings than in having them. "You're right," she said quietly to the others, straightening, a determined look making its way into her eyes. "I need to talk to Patrick."

"Great," Megan said. Morris was muttering to himself, apparently running through their conversation to assess his own damage.

"Right now."

"Now?"

"Before this gets back to him. If I'm to have any dignity at all." Amanda vowed to herself that she wasn't going to turn into a creep or a jackass, one of those people who wouldn't take no for an answer. But she'd be damned if she wasn't going to at least ask the question. If he just wanted to dance – well, she would deal with that then.

She bade goodbye to her friends and waited as the dance rehearsal finished, then entered the room. There were only a few others there, all men, all now in different corners of the room. Patrick was stretching out at the back, but turned as she came up behind him.

"Hi there," she said, giving him a smile.

"Well hello," Patrick answered, and there was no mistaking how his face lit up or his open body language. He was definitely happy to see her. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I thought I'd drop by, see if your dancing's always as impressive as the other night," Amanda answered, her confidence increasing as she saw his reaction to her, better than any look she had seen him cast in Rachel's direction. Patrick blushed, and her heart swelled. The boy was just so sweet. "And I wondered if you'd like to get coffee later. Or the beverage of your choice, of course. My treat." If he was going to get all 'guy has to make the move and always pay' about this then she might as well find out now.

"I'd like that."

"Good."

"So how is my dancing?" he asked, still a bit shy. "I'd hate for you to think I didn't meet expectations." The air was becoming charged, and she felt his eyes intent on her.

"I'd have to still vote for the other night, but of course I'm terribly biased." She saw his raised eyebrow, and smiled. "Because I was dancing then too."

"And I would agree." He looked at her, neither of them saying more for a few moments, at least not with words. Around them the room had emptied, the other dancers not paying them any mind.

"So, later today then?" Amanda remembered she had class in less than ten minutes. "Are you free at five?"

"Five, yes. Meet you inside the west door?"

The west door – right next to where she would have just finished Mme. Tibideaux's performance workshop. Clearly she wasn't the only one who had done some schedule research. "I'll see you there."

**XXXxxx **

Finn didn't give all that much thought to what he had overheard, not until the morning was over and he and Rachel were on the subway, headed over to Queens for his afternoon classes. Rachel was thinking about her plans to get everyone together again for Geoff's birthday and potentially also Marge's, and she considered possible venues.

"It's hard to know," Rachel mused. "I'd like to get everyone together at Callbacks, soon, but it doesn't seem appropriate."

"For a party for a writer and a stage actress?" Finn was dubious about parts of the venture, at least in including Marge, but turning it into a singing session certainly didn't sound right. The possibilities that Professor Sheets had nudged them toward sounded better, if they went ahead.

"Well, exactly!" Rachel nodded for emphasis. "It's our thing more than it is theirs. I'd just like to go _sometime._ Kurt says Morris and his friends haven't been in a while, but they should like it better now."

"Fewer jackasses," Finn chuckled, as her mention of Morris reminded him of what he had heard that morning. He sobered as he considered it; though the advice to Morris seemed good, overall, the rest was more problematic. "I don't know about that," he hedged. "Do you think they would be comfortable?"

"I don't see why they wouldn't, they fit right in at the party," Rachel answered. "And I'd like to sing more with Amanda, we did very well together the other night."

"You think so?"

"Definitely. You don't find many altos with her energy or style, not at our age." She looked at him quizzically, sensing reluctance. "And it's rare to find such adept support at this level, where most people concentrate on becoming soloists. Didn't you find it so?"

"Hey, you know I mostly just heard you," Finn admitted, flashing a small smile. "I guess that means she blended well. And the song the three of them sang, they were great, a real unit. Just – when I was sitting in the hall, today, I heard them talking, all three of them. Amanda's interested in Patrick –"

"Of course she is."

"But she thinks he's still interested in you. So it might not be good, singing and hanging out together, if she's jealous or something." Some memories of the McKinley choir room were better left behind.

Rachel's face fell. "But I thought we were friends. Don't they like me?"

"I'm sure they do," Finn backpedaled hastily. He quickly searched his brain for the positive things Amanda had said. "Actually they definitely do, they want to spend more time with us. All of us from the party really."

"Oh good, then they'll come to the birthday party too, if we have one, even though they don't know Marge yet. But what's that about Patrick? I thought he and Amanda really hit it off. What did she say?"

"Just that she wasn't sure he was really over you. Because she saw him looking at you, at our place." At the party, he meant, but he liked saying 'our place' when he could.

"He was looking at me?" Rachel asked skeptically.

"Well you're worth looking at," Finn said, giving her a sidelong glance.

"But I really didn't think he was still interested." She paused, thinking.

"Hey, I don't have any issue with it. We've cleared things up." Patrick had even apologized for his previous attitude to Finn, saying he hadn't realized the significance of their bond.

"But that's why it doesn't make sense. He's not – _oh_, of course. He's not. And he wasn't looking at me."

"He wasn't?"

"He was looking at _us_."

"I'm pretty sure _us_ includes _you_."

"Of course it does. But you remember what he said, how he hadn't understood us before and underestimated what we have – he's starting to get it now. Probably because of her. And for her to think – oh, that's so wrong."

"So you think he was thinking about her? Amanda?"

"Of course he was. He was thinking about her, and how close we are, and how he wants that."

"You're really sure for someone who a moment ago didn't think he'd been looking at all," Finn teased her a little.

"It makes sense this way, and it didn't make sense the other way. It's a good thing you heard her, though."

"Why – Oh." Finn groaned. "You're going to tell him."

"Well I can't not fix it, now that I know. Did they know you heard them?"

"Probably." They had certainly suspected, from how agitated both Amanda and Morris had become at seeing him. Finn decided to keep the Morris information to himself.

"Then it's not unexpected. Or maybe I should talk to her instead. But no, it would be better for her to hear things like that from him, not from me."

"You're meddling. Like with that party plan for Marge."

"It's just that I'm happy," Rachel said, snuggling into him, her hand wound around his arm. "We're together and it's _so_ right. I want everyone to have a chance at that too, and it's not like we don't know how toxic being unnecessarily insecure can be. And meddling can be good, Marge meddled with us."

Finn smiled, remembering the lifeline Marge had thrown to him, coming to Lima to show him the way back home. "Yeah, okay. I guess just telling him and clearing that up is kind of a small thing, overall."

"And it could mean so much. You saw how they were dancing together, far beyond ordinary, even for dance. Especially for Patrick, I always found him completely professional when dancing, and that was definitely a personal connection he had with Amanda. They were even a little like us, when we sing together."

"A little?" Finn teased her again, his body relaxing next to hers.

"Well it's new, for them." She giggled. "Listen to me, sounding so wise about such things."

"I think you've earned it."

"We both have." Rachel gave a happy sigh and leaned her head on Finn's shoulder.

**XXXxxx**

Amanda was crackling with energy at ten minutes to five, when the performance workshop finished. She had, as she had vowed, completely killed her piece, "The Love of My Life" from Brigadoon. Mme. Tibideaux had been quite complimentary to all aspects of her performance: comedic acting, singing voice, expression, movement, and even her accent (though she wondered whether the Dean realized just how hard it had been for her to stick the Highland Scots accent without veering into her similar-yet-critically-different ancestral Irish). There were a few notes, of course, but very constructive ones. She felt much more herself than she had that morning, when she had been vexed over what she had thought was Patrick's lingering interest in Rachel; even if some of that still remained, he had eagerly responded to her asking him to coffee, and she felt she had a fair chance.

Though that date was for now, or in ten minutes, and as her performing adrenaline ebbed the butterflies returned. _Just be yourself,_ she counselled herself. _You wouldn't want someone who doesn't want the real you._ Though the real her had many layers, only some of which most people knew.

She exited the room, chatting lightly to Megan, but stopped when her friend nudged her and nodded to their left. So she turned and saw Patrick there by the wall, already waiting. Megan flashed a covert smile goodbye and went off.

"You sounded wonderful," Patrick said as she approached. Which made her blush, both the comment and that he had heard – she hadn't been the last performer in the workshop, so he was admitting that he had been waiting for a full fifteen minutes, possibly more. "I couldn't resist taking the opportunity to listen to you."

Amanda thanked him. As they left the building, she suggested they go to the cafe at the corner of campus, determined to conduct things out in the open and never have to wonder about who knew what again. When they went inside, however, the place was crowded, every table full and a long line of people ready to fill any vacancies.

"Isn't The Arabica nearby?" she asked Patrick. She had been intrigued by the others' descriptions of the place and especially of Marge, and she did want them to be able to linger over coffee, something that wouldn't be possible where they were.

"It is. Shall we?"

Amanda nodded, and let him escort her from the overcrowded cafe. This was enough of an appearance to satisfy herself that they weren't caring what anyone else thought.

The Arabica was only half full, and it was certainly a lot less hectic, with seats left at the far end of its single counter. They ordered their coffee, both having the Kenyan AA that was The Arabica's specialty, medium roast for Amanda and the dark roast for Patrick. He reached for his wallet, but Amanda gave him a brief smile to remind him it was her invitation, and he put it away as she paid.

"I was wondering whether you'd insist," she said as they walked to the end of the counter, far away from the door. She glanced at him to see how he reacted to this. "I'm impressed that you didn't." His coffee choice, too, was a bold one.

"It was a bit of a dilemma," Patrick admitted, waiting by a stool until she sat. "Since a gentleman is supposed to pay. But even more so, a true gentleman isn't rude to a lady about it."

She smiled at him, sipping her coffee. "Appreciated. Thank you."

"How long can you stay?" He blushed a little. "I mean, this was impromptu, and you did just say coffee. I have a little work to do tonight, but not much."

"I have to review my notes for a scene I'm rehearsing tomorrow, but that's all. So I could stay a bit."

"Good."

And they talked, about many things: their individual upbringings in different parts of Boston, their dance and singing backgrounds, their musical interests. Part way through Patrick brought over a copy of the Village Voice that had sat by the counter, and they started looking through it, comparing opinions about some of the shows and other events listed. It was as good a way to get a sense of each other as any, and Amanda was intrigued by the preferences Patrick showed, bold and complex, like his coffee and also like she fancied she was herself. A little while later he bought some scones, telling Amanda that she had simply promised coffee so he was free to add to it, and she laughed and happily shared them with him.

Neither of them discussed romantic history, or where this might be going, it was too soon. Amanda was quite aware that they were in the very place where Patrick had contested for Rachel's heart, but chose not to think about it.

Eventually Amanda needed to leave, demurring when Patrick offered to walk her back to the dorms, pleading an errand. It seemed too soon for that too, and Megan would be there; Amanda had meant to drop by the bookstore, so this was as good a time as any. But Patrick asked her to a movie Friday night, a showing of "A Hard Day's Night" at a local classic cinema, and then they would see.

They had just risen when the door opened, and an older woman came in; tall and lanky, with red hair a shade deeper than Amanda's own.

"Marge," Patrick called to her, smiling. "You're in early."

"Just needing to take care of a few things, hun." The woman, clearly the famous Marge that Amanda had heard about from Rachel, came over to them. Amanda looked at her a little appraisingly, trying to see the stage actress she'd been told was beneath the cafe waitress demeanor.

"This is Amanda, Amanda Connolly," Patrick said, introducing her, and Amanda smiled. "Amanda, this is Marge Bailey."

Marge smiled and nodded, accepting Amanda's murmured "pleased to meet you" as she proceeded behind the counter. "Welcome to The Arabica, Amanda."


	7. Chapter 7

The Monarch Restaurant and Bar was located on King Street in the Village. Rachel liked its green wooden doors and awning, and the trees outside, just starting to come into their full foliage. The menu, posted in the window, looked modern American, and, she noted, had a nice vegetarian (not vegan) section.

John implied Marge spent her birthday here- that was obvious. Rachel wondered with whom. She didn't think it was John or Mary, but given Marge's connections and just plain awesomeness, it could be anybody.

So, how could she find out? Just go in and ask if Marge had a reservation on the 1st? She discarded that idea after pondering it for a moment. Were restaurants in the habit of releasing that kind of information to strangers? Probably not. But what if Margaret Bailey herself was in the neighborhood, and came in to ask, maybe to confirm her reservation? That would definitely work. Rachel Berry was an actress, after all. She could pull this off.

She was so excited at the idea, some obvious problems with the plan never occurred to her.

"May I help you?" asked the young woman at the hostess station.

"Yes!" Rachel replied, striding up. "My phone calendar got corrupted, and I wanted to confirm my reservation for April 1st." She pulled out her phone, anticipating affirmation.

"Of course! Under what name?"

"Bailey. Margaret Bailey."

The hostess flicked a glance at her before entering the name in the computer. She chewed her lip, looking at the screen.

"Ms….Bailey, would you excuse me just a moment? There seems to be a problem with the query. I have to recheck something" Rachel nodded, and looked around after she left. It was nice and quiet; the few early diners seemed well-attended by the staff. She noticed a collection of photographs on the back wall, but couldn't make out any names or faces. She was pleased with her performance.

"Ms. Bailey?" Rachel smiled and turned. The hostess had returned with an older gentleman in a dark suit.

"Yes?"

"I'm Jack Valentino.I'm the owner. There seems to be a problem with that reservation. Could you come with me? I'll personally attend to it myself."

"Certainly!" This was getting fun, she thought. They started to walk away towards the back, when the man suddenly stopped and leaned close so they wouldn't be overheard.

"Are you going to tell me who you really are now?" He was smiling, but Rachel could see that was just for the diners' benefit. The jig was up, apparently. But she didn't panic. Instead, she dug in her heels.

"I beg your pardon?" Maybe he'd just tell her to leave. Instead, he simply smiled and led her to the back wall, where the photographs were. He pointed at one, and her heart sank. There she was, looking impossibly beautiful, with the caption:

**Margaret Johnson, 1982. Performance: **_**A Midsummer Night's Dream**_**. **

"These are Obie award winners, right?" Rachel asked, awed.

Jack smiled. "Of course. I founded this place as a haven for Off-Broadway people. Margaret Bailey is one of my best customers. And a good friend." He looked at her quizzically. "Are you a fan of hers? If so, you must have been eight years old when you saw her." He put a hand on her shoulder. "She hasn't been on a stage in ten years, you know." Rachel nodded, sadly. Jack looked more intrigued than angry, though. They entered his office and she sat opposite him across his desk.

"So—can you at least tell me what's going on?"

A waitress appeared in the door asking if they wanted some coffee or something else to drink.

"Could I have some water, please? "Rachel asked, meekly, embarrassed now. Her mouth was dry. Jack ordered a coffee.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied," she said. And when he simply nodded, she went on to tell him everything. She also said all she wanted to know was if she was celebrating it with others. If so, then she would plan a party some other time. But if not, she _really, really_ wanted to honor Marge with a party, and she was starting to formulate one in her head that would do that (assuming Marge agreed). Surprisingly, Jack seemed sympathetic.

"I'll tell you what. As I said, Margaret is a good friend." (who _didn't_ she know?), "So are John and Mary Sheets. I'll talk with them and confirm your story, then I'll talk further with you." Rachel smiled, excitedly. He took her left hand. "I think it's wonderful you would want to honor her this way. And it's nice to know she is impressing young people like yourselves." He paused, looking thoughtful. "You should have seen her then. She was amazing. "

Rachel smiled, adding, "Maybe we'll all see her on stage again, someday." As she turned to leave, she said, "Thanks for not throwing me out," and gave him her phone number.

Later that evening, as she and Finn were having pizza, Jack called and said he had confirmed her story, and said something that broke her heart: For the last ten years, Marge had a standing reservation for one for the late supper at 11PM on March 31st.

"That is so sad," she said.

"Why is it sad, necessarily?" Finn asked. He smiled at Rachel's puzzled expression. "Rachel, she loves Nigel as much now as when he was alive. Maybe she talks with him, shares her life, and remembers." He paused, then said, solemnly, "I would do the same thing if I lost you."

She just stared at him, stunned. Then: "No." She was emphatic, shaking her head vigorously. "No. You cannot. Promise me you won't." She had to make him understand. "Promise me you'll find somebody else."

He was smiling at her, damn it! "I can't promise that, baby."

"Then at least promise me you'll try, try to be happy."

"I can never be unhappy again, knowing that you love me, and I deserve to love you. That can never change. I might grieve, mourn your loss, but nothing can change the fact that I found happiness with you."

Rachel stopped fighting it then. How could she, when she felt, at her core, exactly the same way?

"I still want to honor Marge's birthday with a party," she said, pouting, and, before he could say what she knew he was going to say, "If she lets us, of course."

**XXXxxx**

They were talking about birthdays. Geoff was having a bad night, and was Marge's only customer. He was looking forward to the evening of the 29th, when Elena arrived. But that was a week-and-a-half away, and the Skype session at the party, while sweet and unexpected was no compensation for her actually being in his arms.

"What's the best birthday present you ever got, Marge?" Geoff asked.

"My husband," she said without hesitation. "John and Mary Sheets took Nigel to one of my performances the day before my 25th birthday, and introduced us to each other backstage after the show. We had dinner together late that night and rang in my birthday with champagne."

"Sounds wonderfully romantic, Marge," Geoff said, impressed. He noticed how her waitress persona fell away when she spoke about it, and how she looked completely different—softer, more vulnerable. She looked much younger, but the sweetness of the memory was tinged with sadness, giving her a melancholy beauty. Her deep-set green eyes reminded him of Elena's. His heart went out to her.

"Yes, it was." She sighed, and he saw her rubbing the picture in her apron pocket. "Nigel was … a true romantic when it came to me. He talked the owners of that theatre into letting him bring in a catered dinner on their stage every March 31st after the night's performance, so we could mark my birthday at midnight."

"That's beautiful."

She gave a short nod, holding back tears as she looked at him with a small smile.

"So, what about you, Geoff? What's the best birthday present you ever received?"

"That's easy," he replied, reaching into the neck of his hoodie and pulling out a silver medal on a chain. He pulled it over his head and handed it to Marge, who looked at it intently.

"It's a St Christopher medal," she said, smiling. "Did Elena give it to you?"

Geoff nodded. "She gave it to me when I turned fourteen. He's the patron saint of surfers." Marge looked up, surprised and delighted. "Back in the 60's, surfers started giving St Christopher medals to their girlfriends and boyfriends to signify going steady."

"Awwww", said Marge, "How sweet is that? Did you give her one?"

"Of course!" Geoff grinned. "If you flip the medal over, though, you'll see why it's even more special."

Engraved on the back of the medal, set flush to the surface, was a beautiful Star of David. Marge looked up curiously.

"You're Jewish?" He shook his head.

"No, but my maternal grandmother is. Elena said she wanted to give me a medal that joined my two religious heritages."

"What a marvelously thoughtful gift," Marge gushed. "And she was fourteen when she gave you this?"

"No, she was still thirteen. Her birthday is May 27th. We actually met in July."

"So you waited nine months before deciding to go steady?" Marge threw him a playful sidelong look. He laughed.

"No, our allowances had to wait that long. We were only thirteen when we met, remember." Marge grinned. "We exchanged puka shell necklaces to mark the official start, which was actually in September."

"It must have been hard, going to different schools."

"Well, it was good practice for now, I guess," he said, and she heard the weariness and longing in his voice.

Another customer entered the diner, so she left him to his studying, and by 3:30 he was ready to try and sleep a bit, and left.

A car passed; she glanced at it idly, chin resting in her hand as she leaned on the counter. She started polishing again. The dark-stained cherry wood gleamed under the bright diner lights, reflecting her face back in its shiny surface, but it wasn't the face of Marge, the world-weary diner waitress. It was her real face instead, the face of the still-beautiful stage actress. Wondering what that meant, she paused and stood, almost at attention, liked she used to do when marshalling her thoughts just before stepping out on stage. All the familiar smells and sounds came back, and for the first time in a very long while, she felt the pull of her old life again. But doubt quickly followed. How could she do it without him?

He was her muse. To whom could she go to explore her ideas about characters, to double-check her acting instincts, to point her to other theatrical works that could give her interpretations depth and complexity? They had worked so well _together; _didn't he tell her how well she improved his understanding of the performance of a work, its living aspect, and how that helped better inform his understanding of the written words themselves? Didn't he say she was the reason his lectures were so popular with students?

She felt stuck, until, suddenly, in her mind's eye she saw him laughing, reminding her she was successful before they ever met.

"It was so much better with you, though," she told him aloud, hoping he could hear. She felt the tears come.

He gave no answer. There would be no sign to guide her. All she had was herself, and the restlessness of not doing what she loved to do. No, that wasn't quite true, she thought. She did have her love for him, and the love he left to her. And her friends.

That gave her a rush of self-confidence. Maybe it was time to see if she could do it on her own, and in doing so honor that love. Maybe it was time to audition for the part of _herself._

**XXXxxx **

He may have adored her, but Marge knew Nigel was growing impatient. The stereo system was off, and she could hear him pacing. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, she thought: the owner of the restaurant was holding their table for her, and wouldn't hand it over if they were a bit late. And she wanted to look perfect for him tonight. One didn't turn 30 every day. Well, technically Nigel wouldn't turn 30 until tomorrow, but she wanted him to herself before the party with their friends the next evening.

She slipped her emerald silk, sleeveless dress over her head, adjusted it, then did a final touch up of her makeup. Her red hair was tied back in an elegant ponytail, with pearl drop earrings and matching necklace. He loved her freckles. Slipping on her wedding rings, she exited the bathroom, feeling happy, beautiful, and excited.

"Well," he said, looking gorgeous himself in a gray, perfectly-tailored Savile Row suit, "That was definitely worth the wait." He kissed her cheek so as not to smudge her soft red lipstick, and held her black coat as she slipped it on.

Marge snuggled close to Nigel in the town car she had rented as it made its way from Williamsburg into Manhattan. They talked about a planned off-Broadway version of the avant-garde playwright Peter Handke's _The Ride Across Lake Constance_. She liked the play more than Nigel did, and was pushing her agent to get her an audition.

"I love the idea that the characters in the play are given the actual names of the actors playing them," she told him. "When else am I going to get to do that?"

"When you star as yourself in the play based on your autobiography, luv," Nigel replied. "That sounds like a much better deal." God, how she adored this man.

He said he just didn't like the play's structure, and that it would stick in his craw every time he came to see her in it. Marge kissed him for that, knowing full well he would come to every performance he could anyway-as he did every other play in which she had worked, good or bad, since they met.

They were only fifteen minutes late. The Monarch was a well-established restaurant on King Street in Greenwich Village, which catered to off-Broadway actors by holding very late hours. With one Obie award under her belt the year before meeting Nigel, she knew the owner very well.

They were shown to their table, and, as if by magic, a chilled bottle of Bollinger champagne appeared.

"Happy Birthday, Old Man," Marge joked, clinking his glass with hers. In the soft light of the restaurant he looked so happy and content. She wanted that moment to last forever.

They had roast lamb for dinner, his favorite. Even their use of the cutlery was in sync; Marge had adopted Nigel's holding of the fork in his left hand at all times, tines facing down, and employing the knife for pushing food onto the back of the fork, as well as for cutting. It felt strange at first, but she soon came to appreciate not having to clumsily switch hands to cut and then eat meat, and that it forced her to eat more slowly. She never acquired his fondness for using an egg cup, however, nor his passion for Indian food, but Nigel enthusiastically embraced her love of French and Mexican cuisine.

"Time for dessert," she said, with a sly grin, and nodded mysteriously to their waiter. They were enjoying the crème brûlée when he returned again, this time holding a large, wrapped box. Nigel raised an eyebrow.

"Open it, baby," she purred. It was a black slipcase, with the words "Original Master Recordings" in gold running along the top, and "The Beatles—The Collection" embossed on the sides. Inside were the band's 13 British studio albums, half-speed mastered from the original master tapes, and pressed on special, flawless vinyl.

His favorite band, in sonically perfect form (he despised compact discs).

"I saw you staring at it in the record shop," she said, when all he could do was look at her in complete, speechless adoration, "And I knew you'd never buy it for yourself."

"This is the best birthday present I've ever received," he said, eventually, and she helped him finish off the Bollinger before heading home. He showed her his appreciation that night, and by taking his first sick day ever from work the next day, which the two of them spent on the couch, in musical nirvana, until it was time for her to go to the theatre, and for him to sit in the front row, playing the part of her biggest fan.

She still celebrated "Fab Four Flu Friday", once a year.


	8. Chapter 8

Marge wasn't the only person with The Beatles on her mind in those days. Patrick had warm thoughts of Beatles songs as the week closed, looking forward to his movie date with Amanda, and full of even warmer thoughts about Amanda herself.

On Thursday he had had an unusual conversation with Rachel, one that he didn't entirely understand but perhaps didn't need to. Partnered with him in dance class, she apologized after it was over for not following his lead as well as he should, though as far as he was concerned the apology had come out of nowhere since she had been following well. Though not as well as Amanda would have, and she said as much.

Patrick smiled to himself. Rachel wasn't a subtle person, so he followed her conversational lead to let her say whatever she intended to.

"You had such a connection the other night," Rachel pressed on. "That seemed special." She looked up at him appraisingly, surely noticing the spark in his eyes that he couldn't entirely suppress at the topic. "You like her, don't you?"

Patrick demurred a little, shrugging.

"More than just as a dance partner," Rachel continued. "You were really hitting it off."

At this he gave in and nodded, letting his smile show. "Yes, I like her a lot." Rachel rewarded his honesty with a beaming smile.

"I thought so," she chirped, bouncing. "Just to see the two of you together, I could tell."

Patrick chuckled. "If you say so."

"I do," Rachel asserted, in a tone that brooked no dispute, though a moment later she pulled herself back. "Does she know?"

"That I like her?" This was getting pretty high school, but he was willing to go along with it since Rachel seemed so interested. Of course after his prior interest in her, and how the contest had played out, she would want him to be happy, that was simply how she was. He smiled, thinking of the coffee date the night before, and the movie date the next night. And how direct Amanda herself had been. "Yes, I'm quite sure she does," he answered.

"She – she does? You're sure?" Rachel was clearly taken aback, not expecting this.

"Well, we went to the Arabica last night, and we're going to a movie tomorrow." No sense in trying to hide anything, he decided. Not that he wanted to.

"_Oh._" Rachel paused, regrouping, and a bright smile spread across her face. "That's wonderful."

"It's early yet, there's nothing to tell."

"Of course."

Patrick gave Rachel a soft inquiring look, just wondering if she was still going anywhere with this.

Rachel did her best to ignore the look at first, digging into her dance bag, but after a few more moments she spoke again. "I just – I want to make sure that she didn't think there was still anything between us, on either side," she explained, or at least it sounded like it was supposed to be an explanation. "We know how things are, but you know how people talk."

How things were – yes, Patrick knew how things were, now more than ever. Certainly he had been attracted to Rachel, for herself and at least partly from her resemblance to his high school girlfriend Mary. He and Mary had parted ways due to their differing interests and paths, once they no longer shared regular activities they found their rapport flagging; in Rachel he had thought he had found a stronger connection, since they had more common interests, and he had thought her own high school relationship was just as relegated to the past as his own. At the contest, when Finn had started singing and Rachel had responded to him so completely, Patrick had discovered just how wrong he was, and just how little he had known about how profoundly two people can be connected.

Then he danced with Amanda, a woman so different from any he'd cared for before, and now he was wondering if he had an opportunity to find this sort of deep connection for himself. Surely she too knew that this was more than ordinary. Though she had been tentative at first, yesterday, and he had found it disconcerting at the party that she had left without talking to him again, especially after the look they had shared.

He still wasn't going to ask Rachel what prompted her concerns, though he did vow he wasn't going to give Amanda any cause to be concerned herself, if such an overtly confident woman could show concern. At coffee, there had been no sign she'd been distracted by anything, she had been so completely present with him. And surely if she saw him with Rachel, even right then as they had been dancing, she would notice the connection was nothing like theirs. Even when he'd been his most interested in Rachel, he had had no trouble maintaining proper dance decorum.

**XXXxxxx**

Proper dance decorum wasn't foremost in Patrick's mind the next morning when he looked into the dance studio and saw Amanda practicing the Argentinean tango. He appreciated the sight of her lithe form, clad in a dark green leotard; he did not appreciate her dance partner, who led more heavily than necessary, blunted some of the grace from their movements, and most importantly was not Patrick himself. He decided that Amanda might not appreciate him barging in to show the other man how it was done, and the teacher certainly wouldn't. He would simply have to make plans to give her a much better dance experience some other time.

Not wanting to be caught staring, and not daring to stay longer in case he did decide to step in after all, he went about the rest of his day, looking very much forward to their movie date that night.

**XXXxxxx**

They met up at the entrance to the dorms, both wanting to stay away from any oddness that might arise from the fact that they lived in the same building. Patrick smiled at Amanda, very happy to see her, and offered her his arm to escort her down the steps.

The cinema was in the West Village, so they walked north from there to find somewhere to eat first. Just up Ninth from where it met Hudson they found a Jewish deli, Goldman's, and liked the look of its mostly traditional diner-style interior. The booths seemed cosy, so they went inside.

They were welcomed warmly by a woman in her mid-thirties, short with medium brown hair and a bright smile. She reminded Patrick a little of Rachel, actually, at least in her general physical look, and under the circumstances he wondered if eating here with Amanda was as good an idea as they had thought outside. However, Amanda seemed to have no issues, she just returned the woman's smile and sat down in the booth, so Patrick shrugged it off. It was surely just hypersensitivity on his part, brought about by Rachel's well-meaning but vaguely expressed concerns. And certainly he only had eyes for the redhead across from him.

They both ate light but well, Patrick with a corned beef sandwich and soup, Amanda with a spinach salad that included egg and pastrami. They shyly shared a little, responding to the server's assertion that choosing between the corned beef and the pastrami was impossible, ultimately being forced to agree. They admitted as much to the proprietor when he came out from the kitchen for their verdict, and he accepted their compliments with appreciation.

"I'm so glad we found this place together," Amanda said to Patrick as they finished their meal. And he agreed, it was better that way, it made it _theirs_ in a way that wouldn't have happened if he had picked somewhere out himself for them to eat. She looked around at the walls, some pictures of various celebrities together with the Goldman couple who now ran the place, and others celebrating significant milestones among the older regulars. "I think the others would like it too, couldn't you just see Rachel fitting in here?"

And there was the five-foot-two elephant in the room. Though Amanda was clearly enthusiastic about what she was saying, in a "let's show our friends what we found" way. Patrick gave her a smile and his agreement, paid the bill, and then decided to broach the subject in a roundabout way.

"Have you ever waited for a bus?" he asked her, and he got in return a very puzzled look, her eyebrow cocked. Sure, of course she had. But she let him go on, waiting to see where he went with this. "Back when I was around thirteen I started going to a dance studio before school, for extra practice with a top instructor. It was very early, and some days I couldn't get a ride so I had to take the bus, which made it all even earlier, especially since I couldn't risk missing it." He saw her nod, relaxed though still puzzled. "Anyway, I used to stand there in the early morning light, watching into the distance for the bus. I always felt better once I knew it was coming, so I would look hard down the road, far along to the corner where the bus would turn in. And I would see large vehicles make that turn, with a line of lights on top, and wonder if they were the bus."

He paused for a moment, wondering now if she understood where he was going with this. She nodded at him to continue, and seemed interested, so he went on. "I would hope that these things I saw in the distance were my bus, but as they came closer they always turned out to be something else, trucks for the most part, or an entirely different sort of bus. And then I would see the real thing pull up to the corner and make that turn, and there was no wondering if it was the bus, only wondering how I could ever have thought that something else was it."

He hoped she wasn't insulted by the comparison, a bus wasn't a usual sort of thing to liken your girl to. But he had been peering hard, hoping to spot someone for him to love, thinking that maybe he had, being disappointed. And then he met her, and there was simply no need to wonder if this was it.

"You can recognize the real thing," she commented, and surely by this she knew what he was talking about.

"Yes. And then know that the other things weren't."

Amanda smiled. "I know what you mean." She met his eyes, connecting with him, and he felt his feelings shared. "I have also waited for buses, after all."

**XXXxxxx**

_A Hard Day's Night_ was a fun movie, high energy, all madcap antics and sly deadpan humor with of course that classic lively music. Patrick enjoyed it very much, all the more as he could feel Amanda next to him reacting, laughing, clearly into it. He laughed too, even though under it all he had a small regret that he had decided a movie was a good idea. It was a standard early date, sure, and he did enjoy watching it with her and sensing her reactions along with his – but as he felt her move to the music he wanted to dance with her again, feel that deep connection, that movement and response. Still, it wasn't as if they could spend every moment together dancing, and their conversations and easy rapport showed the potential for a much broader connection. He wanted to relate to her in every way possible. So Patrick did his best to be patient, and he let himself be pulled into the movie again.

He was elated a few minutes later when George started singing "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You", and Amanda's knee nudged his. He looked over to see her wink at him, her eyes bright, and grinned in the knowledge that she had been thinking similar thoughts. They'd dance again soon.

Once the movie was over they allowed the other patrons to disperse, then Patrick escorted Amanda from the seats and outside. As they walked hand-in-hand back down the avenue, Amanda started to sing.

_Say you don't need no diamond ring and I'll be satisfied_

Patrick smiled and joined in, his baritone layering under her alto, his body automatically feeling the beat. He tugged on her hand, pulling her to him as they stopped walking and started dancing.

_Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy_

A little rock'n'roll, two steps with the left, two with the right, rock-step. Turning her under his arm, stop-and-go, out. She pivoted a little on her feet, adding a hip shake, so responsive and clearly happy.

_I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love_

He spun her in to finish with a shared smile, then shifted their handhold to continue the walk, closer together now.

Amanda nudged him again. "_Just to dance with you, oh-oh, is everything I need..._" She gave a happy sigh. "Have to love George. It was before he was writing his own music, but I can't disagree with the sentiment."

"Is he a favorite?"

"George? Yes." She nodded. "I like them all in their own ways, and I have a soft spot for Ringo since he's from the 'hood, but I've always been drawn to a few of George's songs the most. The lyrical sentiments, the musicality." She cast him a lingering glance. "_Something in the way he moves..._" she sang to him, her lovely voice infused with emotion, her glance flirtatious.

Patrick flushed, flattered by her obvious appreciation, and even more by the touch of shy vulnerability that he saw behind it. Amanda was an extrovert, living life out to her fingertips, but he could already tell that the depth she had behind that was something few were allowed to see. He rubbed his thumb over her hand, conveying his response in kind. But of what she had said – "The _'hood_?" he asked, chuckling, and Amanda giggled.

"Something like that. My family came through Liverpool a few generations ago, even lived there for a while before coming across. I may still have cousins there. Anyway, the part of town we lived in was where Ringo was later from, a few streets over." She laughed. "It's really weak, I know, but one of my brothers dug this up and figured it made him sort of ours. Later we found out that John's ancestors had lived near there too, right around the corner from ours at the time, but Ringo had already stuck." She tilted her head to him. "You?"

"Favorite Beatle? John. For his artistry and creativity, certainly, and it's interesting to hear what others do with his songs. I even have an eclectic collection of covers of 'Tomorrow Never Knows'."

"That's an interesting one. Not sure you can dance to it, though."

Patrick stopped and gave her an 'oh, come on' look. "Then I'll have to show you how."

She giggled at his clear acceptance of the challenge. "All right, I look forward to it." They resumed walking again, closer still, Amanda's head starting to rest on Patrick's shoulder.

**XXXxxxx**

Hand in hand they went back to the dorms, Patrick escorting Amanda up to her floor and the door of the room she shared with Megan. She turned to face him, her back to the door, and he gave a slight chuckle as she raised her knee slightly to kick her foot back against the door, rather more sharply than the movement needed. Sure, they were in the hall still, audible to all those in the rooms around them, but apparently Amanda was specifically interested in discouraging nosiness from the one who knew her best. Perhaps it was even more important to have some boundaries when friends were close, and he appreciated that Amanda wanted to keep him inside that boundary.

She rapped her foot again. "I think she's out," she said, her smile a little impish. "Care to come in for a few moments?" Patrick nodded, smiling softly in return. She unlocked the door and led him inside.

Amanda and Megan had both curtained off their bed/desk areas, so all that was visible were the table and chairs by the window, some Art Nouveau posters, and a bookcase. He did his best to not nose too much into the books or wonder which were whose, though he fancied from what they'd talked about before that certainly the Kerouac and Murakami were hers, and thus surely also the Chekhov, Borges and Joyce that sat next to them. The stack of classical choral scores was certainly hers.

She noticed him doing his best not to look. "See anything you like?" she teased, which was too good an opening to pass up. He turned back to her, closing the few steps between them so she was inches away, and he looked into her face, his expression serious.

"Yes."

She chuckled, shaking her head, though she didn't move away. "I did walk into that one. Though I wasn't fishing."

"I know. You don't need to."

She blushed, lowering her eyes momentarily, but it was only a reflex. "What I need to do..." she breathed, trailing off. A heartbeat later her hand was pressed to his chest, her lips on his.

Patrick's arms came up around her as their lips parted and rejoined, touching lightly. The soft brush of her lips against his was arousing, all the more because they'd waited for it. He leaned forward, wanting more, feeling her respond, her hands now on his shoulders as their lips teased. They pressed closely together, their bodies starting a dance that was far more instinctual than any they would otherwise do. Patrick did his best to keep it slow, not aggressive, and moments later she pulled back, her face flushed.

He blushed in turn, breathing hard, his arms hanging loosely around her now. "It's rather overpowering, isn't it?" He waited with trepidation for a few breaths after his comment. He didn't want to wreck this now.

Fortunately she soon nodded, her heightened color starting to fade. "It is. But I don't want to take things too fast. There's a lot of 'epic love' in the air, I don't want to get carried away in case we see something that's not there."

That was sensible, of course. It was worth being careful, not to rush this wonder that they'd found. But – "Do you think it's not there?" he asked quietly, still close enough to feel her breath against his neck. She met his eyes and shook her head.

"No, I don't think that."

"Good." His lips curved slightly. "And slow is good." He cupped her face in his hands, his fingers lightly tracing over her ears, caressing the cartilage points that made them look slightly elfin, yet another way in which she was so special. "I want to savor every moment of getting to know you. I expect it's going to take a very long time."

_**A/N:**_

_**The Beatles lyrics used are from: Can't Buy Me Love (Lennon-McCartney), I'm Happy Just to Dance with You (Lennon-McCartney), Something (Harrison**__**).**_


	9. Chapter 9

They were still breathing heavily from the exertion, sated, skin moist, clinging to each other in their favorite position: Rachel with her head on his chest, Finn's right arm around her back, hand cupping her buttocks, her right arm flung across him, fingers tangled in his hair. The late-night quiet smelled of sex.

It was their time for secrets.

"Finn?" she whispered, twirling his hair in her fingers.

"Yes, baby?" She felt him squeeze her gently.

"In the auditorium, when we had our first kiss, would you have made love to me as well, if I had asked you?" She giggled softly. "Assuming you didn't have to, um, get up and leave?"

He brought his hand up from her behind to stroke her hair, pondering her question.

"I pretty much would have done anything you asked," he replied. "I wanted you bad, actually."

She smiled in the darkness.

"Did you want to make love that day?" He was curious, now.

She strove to put her feelings from that time into words. It was difficult to actually remember, with any fidelity, exactly how she felt. Time had mercifully softened some of the memories of her loneliness and isolation.

"I wanted all of you," she finally admitted. "When I joined Glee, I told Mr. Schue I wanted a male lead who could keep up with me vocally." Her voice turned dreamy, "I even fantasized that he would be the male lead to my life, not just my career. And when I saw you that first time, so gorgeous and perfect, and felt our _connection_, I was all in. Even after you told me about Quinn, I tried telling myself—and her—that I was an honorable person, and not out to take you from her." She gave a short, almost bitter laugh, as that memory cut her to the quick. "But I was in denial. The truth was, I hated Quinn, not just for being your girlfriend, but because she had been so despicable to me, and I wasn't about to let my honor get in the way of me having you for myself." She lay quietly for a moment. "That sounds awful, doesn't it?"

He shook his head, and stroked her hair tenderly again. "It sounds human."

"I wanted you that day. I wanted you inside me, even though I had no idea how it would actually feel… I wanted to be your lover. I wanted to be your wife. I wanted to sing with you for the rest of my days."

"And then I ruined it by leaving," he said, with a sigh. "I have a confession to make, baby: you made me more than just nervous then. You got me so excited, I…arrived early."

Rachel propped herself up on her elbow. "You did? I wondered about that." She gave a soft chuckle in the darkness. "I was convinced I wasn't really sexy."

He just snorted. "Are you kidding? Do you remember how ridiculously short your skirt was?"

She blushed, unseen, then caressed his cheek. "I hoped you would notice."

"Oh, I noticed all right. And that bomb you dropped in the Celibacy Club? And how your singing went right to my core? You were everything I ever wanted, ever dreamed about."

Laying back down, she kissed his right nipple and rested her head against his chest again.

"So…why did you ask me that question?" Finn wondered.

"I don't know, I just wondered what would have happened if we had just given in to all those feelings then. What if we had made love, and were together when Quinn found out she was pregnant? Would she have been able to convince you about being the father as easily? Would she have even tried?"

"That's a lot of what if's, baby."

"I know. It could have ruined everything, too. I mean, we were only fifteen." Her right leg bent over him, so that his hip bone pressed against her dampness. "The timing could have been all wrong. But Finn," She clung to him then, because the memories were flooding back and she had to make him understand, "All those feelings were right, even then. I have never been as right about anything in my life. I never had to mature in order to love you."

"We just had to mature before acting on those feelings, I guess," he said. "Sort of waiting for the right time."

"Yeah. And the right time is now."

He could see her eyes reflecting, faintly, what little light the curtains allowed in from the street. And he started to sing something very softly, with a halting, simple melody:

_**Under wide blue skies**_

_**There's a place to lie**_

_**For me and Evelyn to hide tonight**_

_**I'll try my best to make a go**_

_**But I'm not sure what I don't know**_

_**Oh chariots, if you're out there**_

_**Please swing low**_

_**Tell me I got here at the right time**_

_**If I did it's probably the first time**_

_**No second guesses or secret signs**_

_**Tell me I got here at the right time**_

She lay silently, listening, eyes wet against his chest.

_**You're so red in the eyes**_

_**Either too low or too high**_

_**When I met you, you were sick**_

_**But you did not know why**_

_**I was a pretty poor cure**_

_**But my love for you was always sure**_

_**The bucket was broken**_

_**But the water was pure**_

Oh Lord, she thought, how true that was.

_**Tell me I got here at the right time**_

_**If I did it's probably the first time**_

_**No second guesses or secret signs**_

_**Tell me I got here at the right time**_

She snuggled into him, fiercely.

"Oh baby, you got here at the right time, no question. "

He kissed the top of her head, and they lay together, content, not speaking. Before sleep overcame her, Rachel felt several last thoughts slip in under its curtain: the purity of love, lives together, grief, commemoration, loneliness. She wondered how all those could coalesce into a path to happiness.

**XXXxxx**

The idea came to her in Drama class. The exercise that day was simple: to act as if the wind was blowing in one's face. Searching for an inspiration before she began, Rachel suddenly thought of Marge's story about scattering Nigel's ashes over the pasture of his farm.

She wasn't prepared for what happened next. It felt strange, as if she were being pulled, rather than stepping, into character. Her eyes closed, lashes flickering slightly, as if kissed by the soft Devon breeze; the summer sun, warm and inviting, illuminated her face, filled with the joy of her love for him, and streaked with the tears driven by her vast, untimely sorrow. She breathed in the sensuality of being alive, along with the rich smell of the new grass, and caught the soft nickering of the mares with their spring foals in the pasture, as his love for her, palpable and nourishing, emanated from the very soil upon which he had been born.

But It was too much, too intense: the loss, the vital sense of being alive, the overpowering love Marge and Nigel had; all brought her to her knees, silent, tears on her face, in front of a shocked class. Embarrassed, she struggled to get to her feet, as one boy in the front row came forward to help her up. The enthusiastic applause seemed distant and undeserved.

Rachel knew this was something extraordinary. It was the first time she had ever felt so powerfully close to a character in performance, and the instructor and her classmates, unprepared for such a complete transformation, were duly impressed. It unsettled her, however. That sudden surge of empathy felt like a violation, as if she had stumbled upon a window into Marge's personal grief, and had, like some emotional voyeur, peered inside.

But Rachel also felt like she understood Nigel's love for Marge better, though how she acquired that knowledge was unclear. In the back of her mind, Rachel wondered if she had just met Nigel's ghost. Whatever it was, she somehow knew how that love made Marge feel, and how it resonated so, so powerfully within her. She now knew why Marge celebrated her birthday the way she did, and why one of the terms of sale for Nigel's farm had been that she be allowed to spend a week every June in the old gamekeeper's cottage for her and Nigel's anniversary.

She sat in the lounge after class, and pondered this. She was exhausted; even just that glimpse into another person' grief had wrenched her terribly. The strain must have shown on her face, because Sean, who was passing by, noticed and came up to her, looking concerned.

"Rachel, are you okay?" he asked, his hand on her shoulder.

"Yes." She tried smiling. "Yes, thank you. Just a rough acting assignment." He nodded.

The chair in the lounge was comfortable, so Rachel leaned her head back, closing her eyes. The image of the pasture came back to her like a persistent dream: white summer clouds, rolling across an impossibly azure sky, the buzzing of insects, the gloriously warm air. She was on her knees in the sweet grass, the white, floral dress splayed about her, rustling in the breeze, the urn, now empty, at her side. And she wept, head down in despair, because the last act was done, and she was truly alone. There was the overwhelming desire to stay here, in the pasture, with him.

Time seemed to pass. Cloud-shadows marched, black-green, across the pasture, to the music of birdsong and the rustling of trees in the wind. It was then that she felt it: delicate, like spider silk against her neck. It seemed, for a moment, that Finn had come and brushed her with his soft beard. But that couldn't be, because he was standing at the other end of the pasture by the gate, alongside Rachel (what?), and several others. She felt herself gently lifted to her feet, and guided towards them. No, she protested, I'm not leaving you. But another voice came from within her (his voice?), whispering it was fine, that he loved her, and it was time to enjoy life with the others who loved her as well. So be it. She smiled through her tears and let his adoration, his beautiful, endless love, douse her sorrow.

"I love you," she told him, dreamily, and opened her eyes. Sean was still there.

"Thanks, I appreciate that." He said it with a twinkle in his eyes, as she groggily tried to overcome her embarrassment. "Boy when you crash, you crash hard."

"I'm _really_ sorry. How long was I out?"

"Only a few seconds."

"What?"

Sean laughed. "Must have been a hell of a dream. Are you sure you're okay?"

Rachel nodded, and watched Sean leave, giving her an odd smile as he looked back. And even though she felt drained, there was also exhilaration, because she finally saw a way to get Marge to celebrate her birthday with them.

She got up, mentally compiling the names of people she had to call first.

"It was nice to meet you, Nigel," she said to herself.

**A/N: Lyrics are from "Here At the Right Time", by Josh Ritter**


	10. Chapter 10

Tuesday at lunch, Rachel explained the situation about the party to Patrick and invited him. She emphasized the importance of not letting Marge know, that hopefully she would join them, but gave no information as to her plans for convincing Marge.

Happy at Patrick's ready understanding, she decided to use the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity about how things were going between him and Amanda. Their date had been last Friday, and since they both lived in the dorms they would have had ample opportunity for following up, but Patrick so far had mentioned nothing to Rachel in response to her polite inquiry about the date other than having enjoyed the movie itself and some information about a deli they had found that he thought she would like.

The party provided an opening to find out more, at least whether this was something continuing. "Should I talk to Amanda as well?" Rachel asked, looking across the table at him and trying to be nonchalant, or at least as nonchalant as she could. Finn had cautioned her against asking too much, since when things are new having to explain can make things harder; she recognized his own regrets, back from that brief first time they had gone out, and conceded that he had a point. But she wasn't asking Patrick to decide their status, or judging either of them. This should be safe, even supportive.

"Don't you want to?" Patrick asked in return, and his lips twitched.

Rachel tried again. "I mean, do I need to give her a separate invitation."

"I think she would appreciate one."

Rachel shook her head at Patrick's refusal to engage with the question. Though if he knew what Amanda would want... no, there really wasn't anything she could read from that, aside from Patrick clearly knowing what she was after and determinedly not answering. She sighed. "Of course I should definitely let her know that we want her to be there. The others, too."

"Others?" With that interruption, someone pulled out the chair on Patrick's right, and sat down. Megan.

"Hope she means us." That was Morris, sitting on Patrick's left.

Rachel gave them both a big smile. "Yes I do. We're putting a party together for Geoff, and hopefully Marge too, and we would very much like you to come." She quickly filled them in on the necessary details. "And Geoff's Elena will be there. We'll be going ahead with or without Marge, though of course we hope she will choose to join us."

"I certainly hope to meet her," Megan said. "She sounds wonderful. And I already know she makes a fabulous cup of coffee, Amanda was up very early yesterday and brought some back for me."

So Amanda was going to The Arabica now too, Rachel noted. It seemed to be a very good sign.

"Which brings us to the obvious question, Patrick honey," Morris said, laying on his mannerisms heavily as he turned to Patrick. "What are your intentions towards our girl?"

After her own circumspection, Rachel burst out laughing at this blunt directness, which won her a brief glare from Morris but chuckles from Megan. Patrick, for his part, was doing his best to brush it off.

"I always have the best intentions," he demurred, then slid his eyes slyly over to Morris. "Why do you ask?"

"We're her best friends," Morris replied. "We have been for years."

"Does that mean the three of you are supposed to be a package deal like everyone says?" Patrick was obviously amused too, but had an air of skepticism. Rachel hoped that this questioning wouldn't put him off, especially since she herself had been trying to be so careful. Morris and Megan weren't even trying to be subtle.

"Everyone says a lot of things," Megan put in. "But you wouldn't want us to rely on rumor either, which is why we decided to talk to you." She gave him a disarming smile. "You have been spending a lot of time together in the last week, it's hard not to notice." Megan was Amanda's roommate, so she should know. "There haven't been this many Panda sightings since the last time the Chinese Ambassador was in town."

"Panda, I like it," Morris commented, nodding over at Megan. Rachel giggled at what was obviously intended to be Patrick and Amanda's 'couple' name, but Patrick gave a small shudder.

"You're not making this sound very appealing," he objected.

"What's wrong with 'Panda'?" Megan asked. "Pandas are cute."

"Pandas are endangered, especially since their environment is threatened," Amanda's voice came, and they all looked up to see her come up behind Patrick. She looked pointedly at Morris. "And they need very special food, so unless you're planning on providing some elite catering..."

Morris rolled his eyes. "It's a good name. If there's something to name."

A small chuckle slipped out from Rachel as she realized that Morris and Megan were as much in the dark as she was, possibly more. They must have come to pump Patrick for information because they hadn't gotten any from Amanda, other than Megan knowing when she went out.

"Whatever there is isn't yours." Amanda shook her head in exasperation. "At least if you sat next to each other, then I could knock your heads together and you'd either see sense or have a better excuse for being this dumb." She gave Rachel a small smile, her voice light. "Sorry, Rachel, I'm sure you don't need to have these two busybodies disturb your lunch. I know I don't."

"There are simply some things that it would be useful for your roommate to know," Megan retorted. "Like whether I should stay out late tomorrow night, for example."

"You can if you want to," Amanda threw back, still smiling. "Thanks for the offer."

Megan rolled her eyes at this block. "Then you're welcome," she said. Her gaze locked back on Amanda's, though, and Rachel could see the two long-time friends clearly engaged in an amused yet serious battle of wills. But Amanda was still standing, looking down at Megan, and while this did give her superiority the position also kept her directly behind Patrick's right shoulder, and this betrayed her. Her friends were looking at her face, but Amanda's stance and movement gave away that she was lightly touching Patrick, and Patrick's own demeanor had eased.

Rachel smiled and gave up her prying. Clearly things were going well between them.

"Come on, Meg, Mor," Amanda said, looking from one of her friends to the other. "It's rule one."

Morris sighed at this reference, and Megan nodded. "All right, yes it is," she answered reluctantly.

"Rule one?" Rachel asked.

"Don't pay attention to what I say, pay attention to how I act," Megan answered. "It's a good rule, saved my ass at the party when we became friends, back in freshman year."

Rachel didn't want to ask, though she had certainly heard a variety of rumors about some of the old NYADA parties. Her curiosity was noticeable, though, because Megan went on, answering Rachel's unspoken question.

"Not a lot to say about it really. I narrowly escaped being a freshman cliche due to that rule, these two ignored my 'I'm fine' claims and paid attention to how I was acting instead. Well, to that and those booze-plying seniors and their new hangers-on."

"Ouch." It sounded like some of the rumors Rachel had heard were true.

"Hey, it's a long time ago. But if you've ever wondered why we hold ourselves a bit apart from the NYADA mainstream – that would be why."

"We found we didn't like the NYADA mainstream much," Morris put in. "Not then, anyway."

"It has improved," Amanda stated, nodding at Rachel, and from her movement she touched Patrick again. "But the rule does mean that even if I did tell you something, you're not supposed to believe it."

They were supposed to observe instead. And from what Rachel had noticed, there was a lot to observe, if done carefully. So she continued to keep a watch on the pair of them, as Amanda circled the table to sit next to her, and as they exchanged glances during the rest of the lunch break. Yes, things were good between those two.

XXXxxxx

After lunch, Amanda bade goodbye to Megan and Morris, and walked with Patrick in the direction of his next class. "I am very sorry about my possibly soon-to-be-ex friends," she said. "They get a little nutty sometimes if their curiosity isn't satisfied, and I think they're trying to live vicariously."

"It's okay." He touched her arm. "You're worth putting up with much more. It was even sort of fun."

"I'm glad you think so. Because I really don't want to answer their questions about us, or anyone else's for that matter."

"This isn't some weird vague 'no labels' thing, is it?" Patrick asked skeptically, and Amanda laughed.

"No. I just don't want anyone to think they can nose in or have expectations that we're going to conform to relationship stages or anything like that. Or define things so simplistically." She stepped closer to him as they stopped close to his classroom, and leaned into his arm.

He smiled warmly and brought his arm up around her waist, liking the intimacy they were establishing. "This is for us."

"Yes. But so you know, I don't share. Ever. Nor do I want to be with someone who would."

His arm around her tightened. "No chance of that."

"Then we have what we need, we should just do what we intend to and let them figure it out, or the questions will never stop. When it comes to those two, it's important to get the ground rules in early."

"I can go for that. I do think the nickname is going to stick, though," he commented. "They like it far too much."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Well I suppose we can't stop them from making names up, even if we don't answer to them. It's not bad, really. Pandas are rare and special."

He touched her hair. "I especially like the red ones."

Amanda blushed. "Does that make you the giant white-and-black kind?" she joked back, recovering. "Though knowing those two, I think we can expect to be given World Wildlife Fund paraphernalia at some point. Morris thinks he's clever, and sadly he's often right."

"We could take over the joke and get shirts," Patrick offered, though it might be a step too far. But Amanda laughed.

"Maybe later, it's worth resisting the name for a bit, just go about our business. Speaking about our business, would you like to come over tomorrow night? Apparently I have the place to myself."

"I thought that was just playing with them."

"It was. But Megan's not without good ideas. I'll even let you snoop into my books as much as you like."

Patrick grinned. "It's a date. Seven?"

"Seven is good. Food?"

"I'll bring some takeout from that Thai place we talked about the other night, if you want. No bamboo shoots, I promise."

Amanda laughed at his panda reference. "That would be very much appreciated. Especially since I'm sure that 'special food' crack of mine is going to come back to bite us eventually." She gave him a quick kiss goodbye, and he watched her go before turning into the classroom.

XXXxxxx

The next afternoon Patrick stopped by the dance studio again, watching Amanda finish up her class. More tango, of more than one style, and her partner did seem to have improved a little, Patrick conceded. Not much though.

He hovered, waiting, and watching Amanda tango made him think of the song he'd written for the contest. He had thought at the time that he was writing it for Rachel, who he had thought then might be the girl for him. Now, he mused that perhaps his song had instead conjured up the girl who truly was the one he had sung about, that he had put his music out there and ultimately finding Amanda was a resonance in response. But of course he remembered her in passing before that, so... Patrick dismissed these thoughts as a flight of fancy. Or at least mostly. Maybe someday he would ask her what she had been doing on that night.

The class was over now, so he stepped away from the door as the others left. Amanda stayed behind, practicing a few sequences, and he could see her posture and attitude were much better as she walked through the moves on her own, unencumbered. His breath grew short as he watched her stalk the floor, looking so alive, so passionate. She'd be better still with him, he knew, and before he noticed his own movement he had opened the door and entered.

She pivoted to face him. "About time you came in," she stated, her lips curving.

Patrick blushed. She had seen him and been waiting for him. "And here I thought I was being stealthy," he replied ruefully. "Though I'm happier that you saw me than I am embarrassed to be caught."

"Good. Shall we dance?" she asked, and at Patrick's nod she went to put on the tango music again, then returned to take his outstretched hand. He led her into hold for Argentinean _milonguero_, unwilling to have their heads apart as they would for other forms. She hadn't been doing this, before, but he trusted their connection, that she could follow this. He held her close like he wanted, her head bowed to his shoulder, his face close to her hair. Their feet were close too, interleaved, her arm over his shoulder, and he held her to him and simply breathed for a few measures of the music's introduction.

Then he tensed, and moved. And it was even better than he had imagined, moving as one with her, him framing the dance, her following his lead, one sequence flowing into the next. He gave her space to pivot and flick, their legs interlacing, then tightened them back together so their bodies touched. He was in regular clothes, jeans and a shirt and oxfords, but he barely noticed the effect on his movements. Soon he noticed nothing that wasn't Amanda, Amanda and the tango singing through them both.

All too soon it ended, Patrick timing their final pose to freeze as the last chord came, that familiar continuing tension. They stayed in pose as it dissipated, and for a few moments more.

Finally she met his eyes. "Thank you," she murmured, and he smiled his own thanks in reply. They breathed together, then she went on, her voice still soft. "It doesn't feel done, though."

"It's not." He could dance with her forever and never be done.

She smiled. "I meant the song. Well yes that, but the song too. Tango songs always seem a little unfinished. That final minor chord, a little dissonant – the way it hangs there, meaningful, asking for resolution."

"But not getting it."

"No. At least not in the tango." She blushed once she said that, its implications obvious. The tension between them was also unreleased, building.

"Sean calls it 'to be continued'." Patrick smiled, a serious smile.

"And you?" Her face was so close to his.

"A sense of more to come, always. One leading into the next." He spoke softly, lowering his head a little more to hers.

"But the next doesn't end either."

"Should it?" Closer still, the tension rising further. He could almost taste her.

"No," she breathed, closing that last tiny space, her lips fusing to his. Patrick responded hungrily, all thoughts of dancing forgotten as he pressed her even more tightly to him. They kissed passionately, a congress of lips and tongues, giving expression to more of what they had been feeling through their dance and indeed since they had met.

They had paused for air when a sound from the door interrupted them, and they turned to see movement, a blond head and a darker one turning away. Amanda groaned and briefly buried her head into Patrick's shoulder before shooting an exasperated glare in the direction of her rapidly retreating friends.

Patrick was also annoyed at the interruption, but managed a small chuckle. "At least they're following the rule," he commented, and he could feel Amanda relax against him.

"True," she replied, raising her head back to his. "And it does beat answering questions."

"It? Which 'it' would that be?"

"This 'it'." She kissed him again, softer this time but still intense. She let her lips linger on his a little more, then turned away. "To be continued," she said quietly as she walked over to pick up her dance bag. She shot him a glance over her shoulder and left.

Tonight, then. Patrick groaned in appreciation of the anticipation they were building, then shook his head. That woman was going to be the death of him. Hopefully sometime in his nineties.


	11. Chapter 11

Marge gave herself one last look in the hall mirror before heading down to the waiting town car. Her normally-wavy, deep-copper hair was straightened and pulled back tightly into a soft, elegant ponytail, accentuating her long, pale neck and her pearls. The royal-blue, brushed silk of the knee-length dress clung to her figure like it always did, setting off her fair skin and subdued, red lipstick, and she wore his favorite pair of heels, even though they made her tower over him when they went out.

The ritual was always the same: table for one, set for two, Bollinger champagne, and roast lamb, even though that wasn't on the usual late-supper menu. Jack Valentino would usually join her for a little while, helping down a glass or two, then leave her alone to simply eat and reminisce. At midnight she would raise a toast to them, then go home.

She usually reminisced about the night they first met, but there were other moments. There was that night they took a walk after one of her performances, when a huge, drunken oaf tried hitting on her there in the street, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Nigel, despite being a talented boxer, charmed the man down, telling one of his funny Devon farm stories. "He was drunk", Nigel explained, afterwards. "It would hardly have been a fair fight." And there was the time when she was performing, and noticed him there, in the front row, mouthing all of her dialogue silently. "Just in case, luv."

There were no weird conversations with an imaginary person; all other diners ever saw was an elegant-looking woman with a wistful smile, eating alone. Occasionally men at the bar would notice her and try and approach to strike up a conversation, but they usually backed off when they saw her wedding rings; Jack only had to intervene once. Marge loved him for that, and loved all her friends for their support, but she had begun to wonder if her insistence on these rituals was truly helping her cope. They certainly hadn't helped with the insomnia; that she was getting more sleep was purely due to the positive influence of the young people she had befriended. In fact, helping them and enjoying their company were the only times that the true pain of her loss actually lessened. But the rituals were still important to her, because they had been so important to him: he delighted in making her feel special, and she wanted him to still know that she had not forgotten how he made her feel.

She didn't want Nigel to think that she had abandoned him.

Making sure the driver knew when to pick her up, Marge walked into The Monarch. She ate there enough times during the year that the hostess recognized her by sight, and immediately ushered her towards her table in the back, by the wall of photographs. Surprisingly, a middle-aged woman diner walked up before they got there, and shyly asked if she was the Margaret Johnson on the wall.

"Why yes," Marge replied, amazed at being recognized at all.

"I saw your performance of _A Midsummer Night's Dream _when I was in college in New York," she said, "It was fabulous."

"Thank, you, that's very kind," Marge said, with a wide smile, and took the woman's small notebook and pen. "I'm Margaret Bailey now; will that be okay?"

"Oh yes! Congratulations!" the woman, whose name was Bernadette, gushed, but not without noticing the hostess's sad expression and the fact Marge was by herself. Her face fell as Marge finished writing.

"Think nothing of it," Marge said, "Thanks for appreciating my work, and heck, still recognizing me after all these years!"

Bernadette's smile returned. "Are you working on anything now?"

Marge paused. A damned good question, she thought. Her heart answered: "Not now, but maybe soon." The woman beamed and left them.

"Well, that sure as hell doesn't happen very often these days," she said, and the hostess laughed.

"Is it true you are thinking of working again?" she asked. Marge nodded, and the girl, whose name was Pam, and who wanted, more than anything, to be on Broadway, looked delighted.

The hostess left before Marge had a chance to notice something was wrong: there were two place settings on the other side of the table. Thinking she had the wrong table, Marge stood up, looking for a waiter, when she saw Jack walking up with a bottle of champagne in his hand. She waved, started to sit back down, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized Finn and Rachel were now sitting at the table as well.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" she snapped, outraged. She felt blindsided, almost violated.

"Marge, we're sorry," Rachel began quickly, "But we had something to ask you..."

"Here? _Now?_ Are you kidding me?" She turned to Jack, imploringly. "What are they doing here?"

Jack beckoned her to sit, which she did, and he dumped the bottle in the champagne bucket by the table before grabbing a chair for himself. Marge was trembling, hot, angry tears welling up. He took her hand.

"Margaret, listen…the kids approached John, Mary and me first, and said all they wanted to do was ask you to join them for your birthday, and that if you didn't want to they would leave." Jack was calm, and Marge could tell he was saying this out of love, not pity. She started to relax. He smiled gently. "We've been friends for many, many years, Margaret. We both loved Nigel, and miss him almost every day. But these kids love you, too. And they're here to honor you. I think Nigel would want you to at least hear them out, don't you think?"

She glanced over at Finn and Rachel, who sat somberly, holding hands. They looked...adorable, she thought. Finn was in a nice black suit jacket and pants and open white shirt, and Rachel wore a pretty red dress, and what was that gleaming on her left hand? The anger and fear drained out of her.

She reached out to get a better look at the ring.

"You were wearing this the first time you came in the diner, remember?" Marge finally smiled. Rachel did, too.

"We decided the time was right to wear it again."

She took Marge's left hand for a closer look.

The engagement ring was gold, with a brilliant, possibly one- carat stone at the center, flanked by diamond chips, four on each side. It looked very old. The guard ring, also gold, had six diamond chips on each side of the engagement ring's setting. The combined effect was that of an exquisite, diamond flower.

"Oh, Marge," Rachel breathed, "They're gorgeous."

"They first belonged to my grandmother Grace," Marge said, dreamily. "A beautiful, elegant lady from Connecticut. My grandfather bought the set in London before coming home from World War One."

She had calmed down. There was no point in being angry; she felt loved, in a much more expansive way than she was used to feeling. Jack spoke up.

"Listen, I may lose my liquor license for this, but I want us all to share a toast." He pulled out the champagne, and presented the bottle, label up, to Marge. "Happy Birthday, Margaret." She looked at the label. It was a 1996 Bollinger, one of the great vintages, and extremely rare now. She stared at Jack.

"Where did you find this?"

"Never you mind," Jack said, "I wanted to help make this birthday special for you." He opened the bottle, and poured the sparkling wine into all of their glasses, then whipped a glass from his jacket pocket and poured himself some as well. Then he stood up, holding it before him.

"Here's to a happy birthday, Margaret, from friends who truly love you, for your wisdom, and huge heart." They clinked glasses, and tasted.

The wine was dry, as a good champagne should be, but Marge noticed it maintained the dry character without actually having a _bite_ to it. Instead, it left a wonderfully soft feel on her tongue, with a complex, almost nutty flavor. Her eyes closed in ecstasy; she swallowed slowly, as if reluctant to let it go.

"Oh, _Jack_, " she murmured throatily, "I do believe this is better than sex."

Rachel giggled, Finn smiled, and Jack just nodded.

"As all great wine is supposed to be," he proclaimed.

"I never knew champagne could taste as good as this," Rachel said.

"Me neither," said Finn.

"Okay." Marge took another sip, and Jack refilled everyone's glass. "What do you have in mind?"

Finn leaned forward. "We've got a party ready at a very special place. We were able to talk Elena into letting us include Geoff's birthday as well, so, if you don't feel up to it, a party will occur anyway."

"Please Marge," Rachel pleaded, "Let us help you celebrate your birthday. You've been so good to us, we just want to let you know how much we appreciate your kindness. I promise you, we tried to make sure that Nigel would have loved it, too."

She wanted to bristle at the presumption about Nigel, but something about the look in Rachel's face—a serene certainty-stopped her. She was intrigued, and touched. "You don't know what it means to me that you kept him in mind," she said. They all drank up and Jack distributed the rest of the champagne.

"So…"Finn looked at her. "Will you come with us?"

A part of her wanted to decline. She wanted to say she had prematurely lost the love of her life, and that they could never understand. She felt weary, because it seemed she was always falling short of people's expectations about the nature of grief. Nobody came out and said it to her face, but she knew even her closest friends worried that she should have moved on by now. It would just be easier on everyone involved to simply say thanks, but no thanks. After all, they were giving her that out right now.

Her mouth opened, as if to reply, but closed abruptly. A memory, something she hadn't thought about in years, had popped into her head.

They had been hurrying down a busy street, late for an appointment at one of the bakers in the running for their wedding cake. The stress level was high; her mother, Susan, was recommending a specific baker, and had seemingly taken offense when Marge told her she preferred looking at more than one. What was it about weddings, she wondered, that caused adults to revert to being five-year-olds? The stress was heightened by the fact that she and her mother were very close, and the sudden weirdness threw Marge totally off-guard. And to top it off, her father, Martin, and Amos Bailey took an almost instant dislike for one another, getting into a shouting match over some ridiculously trivial political point when they first met, at the engagement party. Nigel, bless his heart, took charge immediately, standing between them, and telling Amos that he wasn't going to let him come across the Atlantic to New York to meet his prospective in-laws, only to get into a barney over Ronald Reagan. And her father, bless _his_ heart too, was shamed into apologizing to Amos, and made amends by introducing him to the pleasures of single-barrel bourbon.

It was not surprising, then, that Marge didn't want to stop on the street to give a panhandler money. The man was young, polite, and very dirty, but seemed able enough to work, yet claimed he hadn't eaten for a couple of days. She wanted to leave-her father often complained about panhandlers, calling them scam artists. And she and Nigel were _really_ in a hurry. She pulled on Nigel's hand, but he resisted.

"Hang on a sec, luv," Nigel said, groping in his pockets. All he had was a five dollar bill.

"You aren't going to give him that, are you?" she complained, irritably. The young man looked down at the ground, embarrassed.

"It's okay, man," he mumbled, shuffling from one foot to the other.

Nigel pressed the bill into the man's hand and turned away before he could protest. Then he started walking with Marge again.

"There. That didn't take long." She took his arm again, but wasn't about to drop the matter.

"You realize he's going to use that money for booze or drugs, right? "

"Or he might use it to buy a meal."

Marge stopped. "Do you really believe that? He just scammed you."

Nigel didn't get angry, or defensive. He just smiled, giving a little shrug.

"Maybe he did," he said softly, 'But I didn't give him the money with any conditions on how he should spend it." He looked at her with a completely open expression, as if what he said made perfect sense.

"Why?" she wondered. Was this some sort of English thing? She was completely unprepared for his answer:

"Beggars are holy men."

She almost came back with a New York wise crack, but stopped, just in time, when she saw him standing there, hands in his pockets, wearing a serene, certain smile. It seemed to emerge from a place deep within him, and she respected Nigel enough not to make fun of it. Perhaps he had acquired this belief when in Nepal; she didn't know. But she did know that she loved him, and that was enough for her to consider, at the very least, expanding her own perspective. It was enriching, she thought, loving this man: it felt like he would take her to places she had never imagined going herself. No man had ever made her feel that way before.

So she just smiled and took his arm again, and they strolled, not rushed, to the bakery, where the samples revealed that her mother had been right all along.

Marge snapped out of her reverie, and drained her glass. She felt a chill, as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, because the smile Rachel was giving her was the one he wore that day, so long ago. It was as if Nigel was saying she could trust her heart to her new friends, and that maybe their desire to celebrate her birthday with her came from the same non-judgmental place his sense of charity did.

"I'd be honored to accompany you," she said.

**XXXxxx**

Her town car was already waiting outside—Jack had told the driver what to do and where to go, just in case—and Finn held the door for her, then Rachel, then got in himself. There was a wrapped item—obviously a bottle—on the floor, with a card that said "OPEN NOW". Marge laughed. It was from Jack: a second bottle of Bollinger 1996. She hugged it, enjoying the love she was feeling. She didn't ask where they were going, since it was obvious neither Finn nor Rachel was telling her.

"Oh, _Marge_," Rachel said as they started moving, "You look amazing tonight."

Marge smiled demurely. Rachel had never seen her outside the diner.

"So I clean up nice, then?" Her eyebrows arched. Rachel laughed.

They sat for a few seconds in silence, then Marge took Rachel's hand .

"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier. "

"We caught you off-guard, Marge, we understand," Finn said, "We truly wanted to give you the chance to just tell us to get lost."

Marge sighed wearily, and lay back against the headrest. "No, no, it's fine. I've been feeling the need to start changing my life for some time. I just didn't have the inner strength to do it—or I thought I didn't." She felt her eyes glistening. "I've been mourning him for so long that I'd forgotten what it was like to live otherwise. And living like this does not honor him, because Nigel would not have wanted me to be this way." She swallowed hard, staring at the ceiling of the car. "He would have wanted me to be happy. But how can I be happy when I miss him so? I miss him every day. "

"How were the two of you different?" Rachel asked, trying to change the mood. It worked, because Marge smiled again, and lifted her head up.

"For Nigel, 'modern theatre' ended in the 1890's," she laughed, "Although he did like O'Neil and Tennessee Williams. I'm more a fan of Peter Handke, Sam Shepard, and Harold Pinter, but I love performing Shakespeare as well." She paused, then added, softly, "And I loved performing Ibsen- for him."

"Musically, I preferred Bach to his Schubert, and we compromised by both enjoying Mozart and Beethoven. And I'm a hardcore Who fan over the Beatles, and a closet Deadhead." Rachel and Finn grinned.

"What about movies?" Finn asked.

She told them how she got him to love Stanley Kubrick's films, and how she came to treasure Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and _Dr Zhivago _and _Lawrence_ _of Arabia_ , and how the two of them became enthralled together with the midnight showings at the art houses in New York, seeing cult films like _Harold and Maude_ and _Brewster McCloud_, and the Barbet Schroeder films with the Pink Floyd soundtracks.

And she told them how she was a homebody who hated thinking about or planning road trips, but who loved going on them with him once they were rolling. Like that trip out West two months after they met, where they camped in a meadow beside the Salmon River in Idaho, and he told her he loved her for the first time, under more stars than she ever imagined could fit into the night sky.

There wasn't enough time to tell them how much he loved plum pudding and how much she hated it, nor of his bafflement at her indifference to Vermeer and love of Van Gogh. And how she loved to mingle at parties, while he preferred perusing people's bookshelves or getting into arguments about philosophy.

Nor did she have time to tell them of the evenings she had off where the two of them cuddled on the couch with tea and McVitie's chocolate biscuits, reading: Nigel his beloved Thomas Hardy, and Marge bursting out laughing at Thomas Pynchon's wacky humor. Occasionally, she would read passages to him in her low, expressive voice, and he would listen, engrossed, despite the fact that Pynchon's writing drove him mad.

She chose not to tell them about the awful time they separated, because there were just some memories that she could never release from the refuge of her heart. It lasted only one week, because the pain of being apart was unbearable, and, in a coffee shop at two in the morning, tearfully trying to talk it out, they had ended up laughing themselves silly at how bad they were at that sort of thing.

Ten years. It was hard to believe he had been gone that long. Hard to believe she had quit the stage and sold his farm, and carried his ashes in a vial around her neck because she thought his love would carry her through until she joined him again. But looking at Finn and Rachel and their joy, and talking about Nigel and her with them, something struck her, something she probably knew, deep down, all along: living like this, like she had for the last ten years…she might as well have joined Nigel that sad, bleak morning when he died.

She hadn't been a total hermit—she served in several New York theatre organizations-but Marge knew her friends worried most about her leaving the stage. The Margaret they saw must have appeared to be some kind of zombie, going through the motions, as if unaware that an essential part of herself had died along with him. They didn't know how much she ached to go back to doing what she had loved for so long, or that she was afraid she couldn't do it anymore without him. Going back would probably be the hardest thing she could do, but, maybe, the best thing, too.

Smiling in the back seat of the town car with her young friends, Margaret Bailey felt a chill of fate: she remembered reading in the trades about an upcoming play—a stage version of the 1941 film _That Hamilton Woman, _about Admiral Lord Nelson's scandalous, but epic affair with Lady Hamilton during the Napoleonic Wars. The film version, with Lawrence Olivier as Nelson and Vivien Leigh as Emma Hamilton was one of Nigel's favorites ("Winston Churchill saw it 83 times, luv!"). Marge had never seen it before meeting him, and Nigel adorably insisted she wait to see it until after they were married, because Olivier and Leigh were newlyweds themselves when the film was made.

Doing the play could be a gift to him, she thought, or, maybe, his gift to her as well. Assuming she got the part, of course, which made her chuckle: who better to play epic romance?

The car pulled to the curb. Looking out for the first time, her heart leapt, and she whipped around and hugged Rachel as tightly as she could.

They were outside the Streiber Theatre.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates. Geoff and Elena expressed dissatisfaction with my handling of their story. This chapter is my attempt to remedy that. Many thanks to my collaborator, henriettaline, for reviewing and making sure I did their story justice. The Joni Mitchell lyrics are from "A Case of You", from the album Blue. Also, the writers Giulia DeMarco and V.J. Gorey are fictional. **_

_**Reviews, as always, are welcome and appreciated!**_

Geoff walked into the dorm bathroom. Elena was finishing up in front of the mirror before his and Marge's party, and he got that same old pleasurable jolt seeing her dressed up, such as she was. She was leaning forward, concentrating on her eye makeup, in a simple cotton coral blue dress and matching heels. Her height and very short, blonde haircut was reminiscent of Charlize Theron (better, actually, in his opinion) from certain angles.

He smiled to himself, remembering the first time he had ever seen Elena dressed like that, for an 8th-grade dance at his middle school, soon after they met. Her awkward, thirteen-year-old gangliness made her self conscious, as well as the fact she hadn't started developing as quickly as her friends. Not that it had mattered to him, of course: she was still the prettiest girl he had ever seen. His dad, as he dropped them off, whispered to him to make sure to offer her his arm, and Elena gratefully took it, still wobbly in her shoes. He kept tugging at his collar-loose even with the tie- around his skinny neck, and made her laugh and relax when he admitted he felt like he was playing dress up. And yes, their dancing was a bit awkward and stilted, but when he held her close she seemed to fit perfectly, and they could have just stood there swaying for all she cared. And he kissed her, in front of everyone, in the parking lot while waiting for his dad to pick them up afterwards, glad he didn't have to wonder if she wanted to kiss him back.

Elena told him once that she was glad they met so young, because she got to watch him mature in front of her eyes, how she got to see his spindly physique fill out and became bronzed and muscular from the surfing. He admitted he felt the same way about her, that she grew more beautiful every day, strong and athletic, with modest yet alluring curves. His tan had faded because he swam indoors to keep fit in New York. In Berkeley, Elena also swam, but in an outdoor pool, so her tan, while not as deep as in the summer, was still dark compared to the kids in Geoff's dorm. She brought a sun-splashed freshness to this place, he thought, watching her finish up at the mirror. What was it about this town's obsession with wearing black? Elena turned her head to look at him.

"Nice jacket, handsome," she said, nodding in approval, and he laughed, because the tan corduroy jacket he was wearing, over an open-necked white shirt and his least-faded pair of jeans, was one that she helped pick out. He walked up and pulled her close, as she bent to rest her forehead on his.

"Thanks, gorgeous," he managed to get out despite the lump in his throat. She could see him complimenting her on how she looked in his gaze alone.

They were feeling relaxed and alert again, finally. Since her arrival the afternoon of the 29th, he and Elena had spent most of the time in bed.

She had looked so tired at the gate, her eyes, weary and darkly underscored. Like him. They splurged on a cab from the airport, huddling close.

"I loved your email," she murmured, laying her head on his shoulder.

Geoff had sent her a quote to read before she got on the plane. It was from her favorite writer, D.H. Lawrence:

_**All hopes of eternity and all gain from the past he would have given to have her there, to be wrapped warm with him in one blanket, and sleep, only sleep. It seemed the sleep with the woman in his arms was the only necessity.**_

Finally in his room, barely speaking, they undressed, and fell into bed, exhausted. He held her close, marveling as the sheer ache of separation began to ease immediately with her presence. Her soft, warm skin and delicate, clean scent were like a luxuriant bath to him; she played with his long hair, and enjoyed him pressed against her, despite the bone-weariness. Sleep mercifully came while they were entwined, whispering to each other.

Twelve hours later, he awoke to find Elena' s head close to his, green eyes gazing at him intently, her hand stroking his flank.

"It's about time you woke up."

"How long have you been awake?" He took her in his arms. Elena sighed in contentment.

"Too long without going to the bathroom," she laughed. "Come on." Then a smoky look. "We have some unfinished business."

She got up and went to his third drawer, where she found the D.H. Lawrence shirt he saved for her and pulled it on, not bothering to wear anything else. It was slightly large, barely covering her behind, he realized, but didn't complain. She also grabbed her toothbrush and some toothpaste. Geoff pulled on his boxers, took his toothbrush, and they carefully peered out the door of his room. It was 6 AM on a Friday morning, yet nobody seemed to be about yet. They dashed to the bathroom, and other than two people showering, made it back without meeting anyone.

"Now then," Elena purred, the both of them naked and back in bed, "Where were we?"

By now they knew what to do for each other; the separations before had taught them the best way to make the most of their pent-up longing. First there was a round where their bodies, starved for release, made all of the decisions: frantic, powerful and quick. Then came a rest, followed by a longer, tender, re- acquaintance: her fingers playing in his hair, lips kissing his jaw line, holding him to her tightly as her moment came; his lips exploring every inch of her body, breathing in her aroused, intimate scent, delighting as his hands, stroking over firm abdominal muscle, suddenly met with the infinite softness of her breasts. When they came to rest, sated, gasping, hearts still beating madly for each other, Geoff and Elena let the residual fatigue overcome them, and they slept until noon.

He made Elena and himself espresso with his machine while she showered, then she read in the lounge, saying hi to those who remembered her from last time, while he got cleaned up. Ravenous, they ate at his favorite burger place near the dorms, both ordering lamb gyros and a boat of fries, and then she accompanied him to his two classes. They picked up more coffee at the Starbucks across from Union Square Park, and then headed back to the dorm for an impromptu pizza dinner and (early) party for Geoff's birthday thrown by his dorm friends.

**XXXXxxxx**

"What I want to know is," Anoushka asked, "how did the two of you get on this editing-each-other's-papers kick?" She was a petite Indian-American girl two doors down from Geoff. They were all sitting around the lounge, after smoking Geoff's birthday present from his dorm mates, some fantastic Nepalese hash. There had been some stimulating discussions of music and books, and Elena had just finished telling a story about how she and Geoff tried reading _Finnegan's Wake _aloud to each other while high once. An Arcade Fire album was playing in the background, off someone's iPod dock.

"It was a disaster," Elena concluded, giggling, as everyone laughed along with her. She grinned at Geoff, and he was glad that she was relaxed and comfortable with everyone. He had taken a ribbing at first about having a high school—hell, _middle school_—sweetheart. However, when she visited for the contest, a lot of stereotypes toppled: no, she was not wearing a frilly pink dress and bearing a tray of cookies. And her picture in his room wasn't a fake that he ripped off Flickr, either.

Anoushka's question brought Elena's giggling abruptly to a stop. She grew more thoughtful. He could see by her eyes that she wanted him to tell the story, but he wasn't ready.

"I'm a bit too high to tell _that,_ "he said, and Elena nodded, almost imperceptibly. She'd handle it.

She was sitting on the floor, cross-legged and barefoot with him, wearing his white Mexican peasant shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and jeans. She drew closer to him.

"People like to think we made this grand connection, over surfing and writing, all at once," she began, "But the truth is, unlike Geoff, who had always wanted to be a writer, I didn't get serious about it until some time after I met him."

"So he's, like, your… muse?" asked Jamie, a hipsterish, dark-haired English major from across the hall. She had been one of the kids that went back to Geoff's next-door-neighbor Vince's room and had seconds on the Nepalese.

Elena gave a small smile and shook her head. She looked at Geoff fondly. "No, he's not my muse," she said, "Nor am I his. We draw from completely separate wells."

**XXXxxxx**

"The summer that we met," Elena began, almost lost in the pleasure of the memory, "it was almost all about the surfing."

It was an important summer: her older brother Tony had offered to start taking her and her cousin Anya surfing with his girlfriend Stella. Elena adored Tony, and knew it would be his last summer at home, because he was planning on joining the Army right after high school graduation, next June. He was a good surfer, too. She and Anya were the same age, and had tried teaching themselves surfing the summer before at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. He offered to teach them to surf properly, but Tony and his friends preferred Hermosa, Redondo, and Manhattan Beach, on the other side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, so Elena was excited to learn real surfing there.

"My dad restored a classic 1954 Chevy woody station wagon that he let Tony drive, and the first day of summer vacation we loaded up the rack with our boards and headed out to Hermosa Beach. We thought we were so cool. "

For the next few weeks, Elena and Anya worked on their technique. They were dismayed to find out Tony wanted them to, essentially, unlearn the skills they had acquired the previous summer, and start over. He and Stella (a small, dark-haired beauty, and an accomplished surfer in her own right) showed them how to judge incoming swells, achieve a standing position without toppling over, and soon had the two girls consistently achieving short rides on the smaller waves.

One July morning, the usual marine layer of gray clouds covered the area when they arrived at 7AM. The surf was already breaking nicely, with smallish but consistent 3-4 foot swells. "Perfect for grommets like you," Tony joked to Elena and Anya. They pretended to bristle at being called inexperienced, and helped each other get into their wetsuits.

"Tony paired up with me, and Stella with Anya, and we started working the waves. Everything was going great, and then I noticed, after about forty-five minutes, we'd been joined by a group of four boys about our age, thirty yards away." Elena smiled slyly, and Geoff dropped his head, blushing. "We were all just bobbing in the swells, taking it easy, and I was supposed to be listening to Tony, who was explaining something to me, but the only thing on my mind was, who's the guy over there with the long blonde hair?"

The other boys had short haircuts, and kept horsing around, but the long-haired one was sitting on his board, gazing back over his shoulder. While the others were fooling around, he saw a good swell coming, then quickly started paddling towards shore and caught the wave just at the right moment. Elena watched him unsteadily stand on his board, and actually ride for a little before the wave began to collapse and he lost his balance, plunging head-first into the surf. Tony followed her eye, noticing her smile when his head popped up and he shook the water out of that wet mane of his.

"He could use some help," Tony remarked, "There was more he could have squeezed out of that wave." She blushed, but then, almost without realizing it, surprised herself as much as him with a bold grin.

"Maybe I should go over and show him how it's done," she blurted out.

Tony raised his eyebrows, then chuckled.

"Maybe you should, Ellie."

She loved and looked up to her older brother, and knew he wasn't trying to mess with her. But she put her bravado aside for the moment, and shook her head.

"Nah, I don't want to embarrass him in front of his friends."

Tony just smiled, and they went back to work.

At ten o'clock it was time to take a break, just as the clouds burned off and it started to warm up. The beach was starting to fill. Elena and Anya stripped off their wetsuits and sat on a blanket, eating some fruit. Tony and Stella walked over to talk with some friends. The sun felt good.

"Hey," Anya nudged her and pointed towards the lifeguard tower. "There are those guys, from earlier."

Elena looked, but she already knew where they were. The blonde boy was sitting, arms around his knees, listening to one of the others. Without wetsuits, all four of them looked on the dorky side of skinny, but brown and healthy.

"I'm going over and talk to him", she said suddenly. Anya looked at her, feigning shock.

"Well I do declare, Miss Ellie, aren't you the forward one?" Then she giggled, her long blonde hair flying in the breeze. The two cousins actually looked more like sisters, and were the best of friends.

"Don't you want to come along?"

Anya just blushed and shook her head.

Elena had never done this before, but her decision was far from impetuous. She had been watching him the whole morning, and liked how he refrained from joining in most of the horseplay of the others, yet still appeared to enjoy their company. She liked how he seriously studied the swells, and didn't make the same mistakes over and over. He seemed…thoughtful. And there was something else, something she hadn't mentioned to the others: she caught him gazing at her once, and he immediately broke into a shy smile, which she returned, before both of them looked away.

She shook her drying hair—it was like Anya's back then, long and blonde- and stood up. Her decision made, she began walking towards the boys. At first she felt acutely exposed, now that she was only in her bikini, a black top with red bottoms, which, while not particularly scandalous, _did_ _not_ hide very much. But the die was cast for her when she caught his gaze again. He was smiling at her as she approached, holding her returned smile, not turning away this time. The insecurities she held about her body melted away. He made her feel powerful. There was the taste of ripe peach in her mouth, and the smell of brine, suntan lotion and French fries. And the hissing, glittering surf. And she realized, standing before him, that she had no idea what she wanted to say.

She felt all of their eyes on her. The long-haired boy stood up immediately. She liked that.

"Hi," Elena said, stalling, waving her hand.

"Hi" he said, extending his. "I'm Geoff."

"Elena." She shook his hand, awkwardly, she thought. Up close, she was pleasantly surprised at how good-looking he was—bright blue eyes, and an intelligent, calm face, under that shaggy, bleached-blonde hair. He seemed to like what he saw, too, and she felt a thrill.

"We were watching you out there today—you rip."

"Thanks. You aren't bad yourself," she said lamely, feeling embarrassed from the compliment, and anything but powerful now. Geoff just scoffed.

"Not as good as you and your boyfriend," he said, slowly, gauging her reaction. She laughed gaily, running a hand through her hair.

"He's my _brother_," she giggled, enjoying the relief on his face.

Geoff introduced his friends: Paul, Brad and Field. "His sister's name is 'Leaf'". Field laughed, and shook her hand too. "And I have a younger brother named Marsh." They all lived in Manhattan Beach, and were going into 8th grade, like her and Anya.

"That must be cool to be able to just walk to the beach every day," she commented. Then she figured out what she wanted to say.

"Hey Geoff, do you have a wax comb my cousin and I could borrow? Our boards got a little slippery at the end there."

"Yeah, I noticed," Geoff said, grinning. Then he looked at her carefully. "None of you brought a wax comb?" He rummaged in a small bag as Elena shrugged, deadpan. He handed her what looked like a Swiss Army knife, only with a wax comb and tools to adjust board fins, as well as blades.

"I've always wanted one of these," Elena murmured.

"When's your birthday?" Geoff asked, giving her a sidelong glance, and she felt something pass between them right then, a connection she would never be able to explain to anybody, before his friends ruined the moment with "Awwwww" noises, and before she invited them to join her and Anya to surf a bit more while her brother and his girlfriend hung out nearby with the big kids.

"We spent the rest of the summer surfing together," Elena said, dreamily, "Anya and Field even had a summer fling, too".

She looked at Geoff, and they were silent for a moment, awash in memory.

"That's nice and all," Anoushka said, "but what about the editing?"

**XXXXxxxxx**

"Two weeks later, on a Saturday, Geoff invited me to stay and have lunch at his house."

Geoff called his parents, who agreed, and said they had to be at his Aunt Lori's house in Long Beach for dinner, so they'd be glad to drop her home on the way. Elena cleared it with her parents, and Tony said he'd take her board and other gear home with Stella and Anya. They had a great surfing morning, and, after saying good bye to the others, she and Geoff washed off the salt at the outdoor beach shower with the handmade soap Geoff used from one of the surf shops on the Strand. She loved how he had no problem using her after-surf shampoo. Then she went into the restroom and changed into the simple blue cotton coverup dress she always carried in her bag, and white Converse low tops.

He didn't live far, he told her. Elena offered to carry his small bag after slinging her own over her shoulder, and he held his board under his left arm. After walking a few feet, Geoff stopped and turned, offering his free hand. She beamed and slipped her hand into his as they strolled up the Strand, crossing from Hermosa into Manhattan Beach.

It was their first significant time alone. They spent it talking about the surfing that day, and she asked if he'd ever seen _The Endless Summer_, and was delighted to find out he hadn't, so she invited him over to her house soon to watch it. It was a giddy feeling, planning actual things with him, it all seemed so new. She liked it.

Geoff's family lived five blocks above the Strand, in a small two-bedroom house, more of a bungalow, actually, on a quiet, tree-lined street. They walked down the driveway, which consisted of two concrete strips with grass in between them, to the tiny garage set in the back, and stashed his board. Then, after meeting an excited and affectionate border collie named Molly, they entered the house through the back door, which opened into the small, sunny yellow kitchen, where a tall, slender man in jeans and a red polo shirt flipped grilled cheese sandwiches in a frying pan. The Supremes were singing "Nathan Jones" from another room. He slid the sandwiches on a plate and turned around.

"Hi!" he said, extending his hand, "You must be Elena! I'm Dean, Geoff's dad. Welcome!"

She was shaking his hand as a small, pretty blonde woman in a t-shirt and jeans shorts came in from the living room. She looked at Elena for a moment, then smiled. "Hello", she said.

"Hi, Mrs Fielding, I'm Elena Bosaic."

"I'm Nan" she said, and hugged her.

Lunch was delicious: grilled ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches, and fresh fruit.

Geoff's parents were teachers: his mother taught chemistry at Mira Costa High School, and his father was a literature professor at El Camino College. Elena explained that her father, Philip, was a longshoreman for the Port of Los Angeles. Her mother Irma was an accountant for a shipping firm. She told them she was going into 8th grade at Dana Junior High in San Pedro.

Elena tried a plum from the plate. Geoff's father watched her ecstatic look after the first bite. "Picked fresh off of our tree this morning," he said, and she giggled when she had to use her napkin to catch some of the sweet juice on her chin. His mom offered to give her some to take home, much to Elena's delight.

She told them about her brother, and his decision to join the Army.

"Tony wants to be a paratrooper."

"Your family must be proud," Dean said.

Elena nodded. "We are…proud of him."

"But how do _you_ feel about his decision?" Geoff asked. His mother gave him this look, as if he was being rude, but Elena honestly loved him for asking. She was the baby of the family, and young enough for her opinion not to be given as much weight as the older members. She bit her lip before answering, not sure if she could maintain her composure.

"I tried talking him out of it." She clasped her hands in front of her. "I tried telling him how much I loved him and how if he went I'd never get a good night's sleep, praying for his safety." Then the tears came. "He said he understood, and that he loved me too, and hoped I'd forgive him someday."

The others said nothing, but Elena could see they were moved.

"Of course I'll forgive him," she continued, "That's not the problem. The problem is all those hypocrites who'll shake his hand and say 'Thank you for your service', yet, if he comes back maimed, won't even want to look at him, or vote for veteran's services to take care of him and his fellow veterans." She paused, a hard lump in her throat. "And if he's…killed…well, at least he'll be out of sight and out of mind for all but those who loved him."

She sniffed, wiped her nose with a napkin, and looked apologetically at Geoff and his parents.

"I didn't mean to go on an emotional rant right after meeting you," she tried joking, and Geoff simply nodded, patting her hands. His parents said nothing, but she could see they sympathized, and even smiled slightly at their son's sensitive gesture.

He asked if she'd like to see his room, but before she could answer, Molly hurtled through the kitchen doggy-door, and started licking Elena's hand.

"Molly, no!" Geoff reprimanded, even though Elena didn't seem to mind. "She knows not to interrupt a meal." He told Molly to go, and she reluctantly obeyed, wandering into the living room.

"May I help with the dishes?" Elena asked, and his parents both shook their heads. So she followed Geoff down the short hall into a small bedroom, followed by the curious Molly. He left the door open, she noticed with a smile.

She was struck by its spare neatness. There was a nice-sized, perfectly-made bed, a nightstand and lamp, and a large wooden desk with only his laptop, a small reading lamp, an iDock, and a stack of notebooks. There was no TV. One wall had a window with yellow curtains, a dresser, and a poster of a severe-looking older man looking down at them. Another wall was dominated by a closet, and the remaining two walls were covered from floor to ceiling by wooden bookshelves. There must have been hundreds of books in them. Not a shoe or stray sock could be seen on the nice, oriental-style rug covering the hardwood floor. Geoff would be in for a shock when he saw her room, she thought. Molly jumped up and lay on the bed. She joined the dog, sitting on the edge, gawking at the books.

"Are these all _your_ books, Geoff?" she asked in awe. He sat next to her.

"Well, technically, they were my grandfather's. Dad inherited the house from him when I was eight. That's how we can afford to live here." Geoff stood up and walked over to a shelf. "Granddad was also a college professor, at Loyola-Marymount. He taught literature, like Dad." He ran his hand over some pale bluish volumes. "Complete C.S. Forester. Dad told me to start reading these when we moved in. He said they were some of the greatest adventure novels ever written. There's a complete Robert Heinlein set, too."

"Did you read them?" Elena asked, amazed. She saw his eyes light up, just like they did at the beach when the surf was high.

He nodded. "My folks had to take away my reading light because I wasn't getting enough sleep."

He also said he had just started reading the Beats, mostly Kerouac and Burroughs.

Geoff pursed his lips, as if he was debating something internally. Then he grabbed her hand. "These books have made me want to become a writer."

She looked at him fixedly. "A writer? What kind of writer?" She knew already that Goff was thoughtful. But this was a pleasant surprise. She had been entertaining thoughts about being a poet herself, but never seemed to get any support from anyone.

"A novelist."

"Wow. That's pretty cool. Have you written anything yet that I could look at?"

Geoff blushed, and shook his head. "Nothing that I consider ready to be viewed."

She playfully looked over at the stack of notebooks on his desk. "Is that it? C'mon, _Geoff_," she whined, "let me see. I've written poetry."

"Those are my journals," he said, laughing.

"You keep a journal?"

"I've been writing in it every day since I was eight."

"Every day?" Elena didn't mean to sound incredulous, but art to her was more…spontaneous. She asked, with a curious grin, "Am I in it?"

"You've been the main subject for the last two weeks," Geoff said, watching her blush, "And no, you cannot read it."

She pretended to pout, and they laughed, but something in that moment changed everything. Geoff told her later that it was the light from the window falling on her face and her full lips, plus the fact that he had just revealed his dream to her. Whatever it was, he suddenly fell silent. She saw him pause, then lean forward. She knew what was coming. And there was no time to over-plan or over- think or over-anticipate. She was being kissed by a boy for the first time. It was slightly awkward at first, tentative, and she knew it was his first time kissing a girl, but she appreciated how Geoff didn't rush, giving her time to react and respond, and she secretly enjoyed his surprise at feeling her tongue softly against his teeth, requesting entrance, and the exquisite pleasure when he gave it to her, her hands up, caressing his face, fingers entangled in his hair. She loved how he tasted of plum, and how he pulled gently away at just the right moment for both of them. They sat, holding hands, serenely absorbing what just happened.

"We should do that again some time," he said, with a contented sigh.

"Oh, we will," Elena said, "We definitely will."

They spent the rest of the afternoon playing Frisbee in the yard with Molly. Later, Elena sat with Geoff in the back seat of the car on the way to her house. They held hands, and every now and then would give each other a secret smile. He turned to her.

"I know this is going to sound a bit one-sided, considering how I won't let you see my writing yet," he said, "But can I look at some of your poetry?"

"Yeah, it is pretty one-sided," she jokingly agreed. "I'll have to think about it." He gave her this adorable grin that told her he knew she would show them to him. Well, some of them, anyway. As they pulled into her driveway, Elena impulsively kissed Geoff on the lips, said she'd see him on the beach the next day, and bounced out of the car, thanking his parents, who seemed a bit surprised, but amused at her behavior.

Later that evening, she hesitated sending him some of her poems. She wondered if he would think of them as silly things many young girls do. That caused her to write off most of her efforts. But there was one that her friends didn't like because it didn't rhyme (sheesh), and which she never showed to Tony or her parents because of the subject matter. Geoff could be entrusted with it, she decided. So, right before going to bed, and as she was running his kiss through her mind, she sent the poem to him.

Stella and Anya made fun of Elena on the way to the beach the next day. "You look different, girl," Stella said, winking. Anya just kept humming "Wedding Bell Blues". She didn't mind the ribbing, actually, because she wasn't ashamed. Let's face it: Geoff was good-looking, literate, and a surfer. Come on, people, really.

The guys were already in the water. It was still cool enough for wetsuits. As she paddled out to meet them, Elena suddenly wondered what the greeting protocol should be between her and Geoff. She needn't have worried. As soon as she pulled up next to him, Geoff leaned over and pulled her in for a nice kiss, in front of everyone. And nobody seemed to care. Even Tony. He kissed Stella in support.

Later, Geoff asked Tony if it was cool if he and Elena go eat lunch together on the Strand. She could tell Tony appreciated being asked, though she knew he wasn't completely comfortable with how their parents thrust the role of her chaperone upon him. But he was her big brother, and he loved her, and would always look out for her when he could, and she cherished their relationship. It made his decision to join the Army all the more heartbreaking. He said, "Sure."

They walked, hand-in-hand, past the beachgoers in the warm summer sun. Geoff was wearing a sleeveless blue t-shirt over his shorts, and flip-flops, while Elena wore a plain white t-shirt over her bikini and had her trusty low-tops to keep her feet from burning on the pavement. She imagined they looked like a classic surfer couple, and laughed to herself. She also wondered what Geoff had in the paper bag he was carrying.

"Pick any place you like," Geoff said, and Elena stopped him in front of a Greek place that sold gyros.

"Do you like gyros?" she asked him, and he replied he'd never had one. "It's a traditional roasted lamb sandwich," she explained, with pita bread, tomato, onions and _tzatziki,_ a creamy cucumber sauce. When he wrinkled his nose, saying how he disliked cucumbers in salads, Elena begged him to try the _tzatziki_ first. He also said he had never eaten much lamb before. She patted his arm. "I'm Croatian, baby" she said, "trust me about the lamb." Just then the wind carried the smell of the roasting meat over to them, and he suddenly pulled her with him to the counter, laughing. She asked for a small sample of their _tzatziki_, and clapped her hands when she saw his face light up with pleasure at its cool, fresh taste. "It's made with yogurt," she said. He ordered them two gyros and fries (offering to pay and confiding that his dad had slipped him some extra money for it because he liked Elena, too) and some spicy ginger beer ("I love this stuff", he enthused), and they found a wooden picnic table.

Their hours surfing, the fresh air and warm sun fueled two enormous appetites: Elena almost laughed at how they didn't speak until most of the food was gone.

"God, Elena, thanks for turning me on to these," Geoff said, and she just smiled, also glad that he never called her "Ellie".

"You're welcome," she said, then asked, " So…what's in the bag?" She wondered, to herself, if he had read the poem yet.

"I read your poem," he said, as if on cue, "But only once, quickly." He could see she was in suspense, so he took her hands in his, then said, "I liked it, but can I read it a few more times before I say anything more? I haven't _absorbed_ it yet, you know?" She would learn this was typical of him; methodical and thorough with his thoughts, Geoff loathed uttering anything until he knew what he wanted to say. So Elena just nodded and smiled, then arched her eyebrows, looking at the bag.

"I will say I liked how you decided to put your thoughts about Tony and the Army, and how it affected you, in a poem. I told my dad about the theme, and he suggested this book from my room." He pulled a hardcover from the bag. It was a novel, _Meadow Grass_, by a writer named Giulia DeMarco.

Elena paused in the telling of the story.

"I've read that book," Jamie said. "I've read all of her books."

"_That_ _book_, "Elena declared, "changed my life."

**XXXxxxxx**

It was about a tiny English village in Lancashire that got caught up in the patriotic fervor of 1916, and sent all 23 of its eligible men to join the Accrington Pals Battalion. Pals battalions were so named because the Army guaranteed that all of their members could serve together with their friends and neighbors. It was a fantastically successful recruiting policy.

On the morning of July 1st, 1916, the entire Accrington Pals Battalion was sent over the top on the opening of the Battle of the Somme. In less than half-an-hour, the unit practically ceased to exist, "mown down like meadow grass," according to one eyewitness. Of the original 700 men, 585 were casualties.

The novel begins on the day the village of Mornington finds out that all 23 of their young men were killed in less than 15 minutes, slowed and trapped on the German wire, then mercilessly cut down by machine gun fire, less than 75 yards from where they started. The dust jacket blurb quoted a critic, who called DeMarco's 1994 book "An incredibly powerful and moving meditation on the nature of patriotism, duty, love and loss."

"I took that book home and finished it in three days, reading it on the beach after surfing, and late into the night. It encapsulated—perfectly-all of my feelings about Tony and the wars and their impact on all of us. And after I finished it, at 2 in the morning… " She paused and gazed at Geoff lovingly, "I called him on the phone and told him I wanted to be a writer, too."

"So," Anoushka asked, after also having seconds on the Nepalese hash, "is _that _when you started editing each other's stuff?"

"No," Elena giggled, "We both decided that we needed to educate ourselves first, and read as much as we could get our hands on."

"Well," Geoff interrupted, "We _did_ agree to work on a journal every day as well…" He gave her a grin, and she punched his arm playfully.

"I had a hard time doing that," Elena admitted. "But then, I didn't use it in the same way he did."

She found that Geoff used the journal to record details during the day that he wanted to keep for future reference, plus prose experiments, and his personal thoughts on…well…life. Elena used it almost purely as a notebook, recording facts on current events, and what she could glean on the origins of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and historical items from the First World War, because, after finishing all of DeMarco's novels on Geoff's shelf (most of which dealt with the effect of World War One on British society), she moved on to Pat Barker's novels with a similar theme, and the starkly beautiful antiwar poetry of Wilfrid Owen, a British officer who was killed one week before the Armistice.

It was the third month of 8th grade that Elena discovered D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, and Geoff had finished with the Beats and had been turned on to Thomas Pynchon by his father.

"Lawrence and Woolf weren't as specifically focused on World War One's aftermath," Elena said, "But it haunts their writing, nonetheless." She paused, with a dreamy expression. "And Lawrence writes so goddamn beautifully. It wasn't until I read him that I understood what kind of voice I wanted."

Geoff, in the meantime, had been going back through his journals, looking for those prose experiments that had things in common, and tried tying them back to what he had been reading.

"I ended up deciding to throw out a lot of what I had written," Geoff said. "And Elena and I had a big fight over whether or not I should show her those failed experiments."

"Yeah," Elena said, sadly. "We were, you know, 'going steady' by then," she made quote motions with her hands, "but our surfing was cut back to the weekends and holidays, and some of our friends resented the time we did spend together, and, because we lived in different towns, girls and guys were hitting on us relentlessly, and our parents were wondering why we weren't seeing other people…" She sighed. "It was a dark time, and the issue of Geoff being so secretive about his writing was just one more thing with which to deal." She bowed her head. "I told him it wasn't right that I showed him some of my stuff (and appreciated his always constructive feedback), but that I was cut out of his creative process."

"She said she thought I didn't trust her to review my work," Geoff said, wringing his hands, at the memory. But then he softened. "She said it hurt her, badly, because she loved me."

"I'd never told Geoff that I loved him before," Elena explained, "even though I knew it for some time."

"Why not?" Vince asked.

"Because I was _fourteen_, and the depth of the feelings I was having scared the hell out of me. I mean, my parents openly wondered why I was so involved with Geoff, and his parents felt the same way, as did some of our friends. I began questioning my own feelings. But at that moment I felt everything was crumbling, so I had to let him know just how serious I was."

"And what did he say?" All of the kids in the lounge leaned forward, now, interested.

"I was relieved," Geoff said. "Something unsaid had been building up inside me, too. I told her I was glad to know that, because I was in love with her, as well. And we were so…happy, you know, because we admitted that our feelings for each other had grown far deeper than just 'going steady.'" Then he added, "But I also realized that, I had just entrusted another person with my deepest, innermost feelings." He took Elena's hand. "And I told myself, if I could show Elena the true me, I could show her my work, even if it wasn't where I wanted it yet."

"But you two were just fourteen, right?" Anoushka marveled. "I mean, _Jesus,_ I remember when I was fourteen, and nothing that heavy was going on in my life, and yet I still had a ton of shit to deal with."

"We were lucky to find out we shared two passions," Elena said. "And that with the writing we didn't have to be in close proximity. That was the key. It allowed us to fall in love and yet live in different cities, with almost no chance of being completely alone, so that stuff like sex didn't really get a chance to ruin it early on."

Vince started to make a snide remark, but Geoff gave him a murderous look, and he laughed and backed down.

At first, Elena couldn't figure out what Geoff was trying to do with those failed experiments. Some were ten or more pages long, and the language seemed dense and difficult. She didn't give up on them. Instead, she asked questions. Were any of them related? Some of them were, he answered, ten in fact, so she concentrated on those. They seemed to be random vignettes, told from different points of view. But she was determined to find out how they fit together. Re-readings eventually began to pay off, because Elena thought she detected a glimmer of a pattern. Some had certain short phrases or unusual words in common, but at different places in the pieces. Others seemed unrelated that way, although she did uncover a few relationships because the phrases had been changed through the use of subtle puns. She made subgroups of these, recording them in her journal at night after her homework was done. It was slow going, though, because she was also writing her own material, a short story that she wanted to enter in the annual literary contest for the entire Los Angeles Unified School District.

"I asked Geoff for help," Elena said, "because he said he wasn't entering anything. As usual, he said he didn't have anything 'fit to submit.'"

"Hey!" Geoff protested weakly, and she just giggled.

"It was then that our process for editing each other's work began to take shape."

"Finally," Anoushka grumbled.

**XXXxxxx **

Elena invited Geoff over for dinner one Friday night, and also to stay over so they could work late on her story for the contest. He had felt a lessening of the tension with her parents lately. That made him grateful; he had been working hard to give them no reason to think he was bad for their daughter, even though he wasn't sure what, if anything, he could actually do to get them to fully accept their relationship. Dinner was pleasant, and afterwards Tony left for a date with Stella, her dad went to his workshop in the garage, and her mom sat in the living room reading while Elena and Geoff sat cross-legged at the coffee table with their laptops and notepads. The low table was ideal for them, and her room just wasn't suitable for it. He could tell Elena would have preferred to be alone with him, but was glad they weren't giving his parents any reason to complain.

"Mom", Elena asked, pointedly, "We're not disturbing you, are we?"

Irma Bosaic peered at them genially over her book, Doris Kearns Goodwin's _Team of Rivals_, Geoff noticed. "No, not at all. Go right ahead." She subtly winked at Geoff, causing him to laugh and Elena to roll her eyes. Elena's mother was the mellower of her parents; Philip was gruffer and, frankly, more traditional.

Elena's story was called "The Book of Common Prayer", about a high school girl who has a secret crush on an older student who has no idea who she is, and when he joins the Army after graduation, she composes prayers for his safety and records them all in a little notebook. She plans to give the notebook to him, if he returns safely, as proof of her love. Years pass. She graduates from high school, goes to college, and falls in love with someone else, all the while filling the notebook with prayers for the soldier. When the soldier does return safely, the girl's feelings for him rekindle, and she travels to her hometown, determined to first give him the book and win his heart, and then end it, somehow, with her new lover. But, on the trip home, she tries imagining life with the soldier, and comes to the realization that she can't, because she never even knew him in the first place, and that her prayers should have been a message of love and hope for every young person who ever left home to serve his or her country. She ends up donating the prayers to a local veteran's center, and then goes back to her college boyfriend.

It was several hours later. Geoff and Elena were wrestling with the ending. Elena wanted the girl to come to the realization on the plane, and then go straight to the veteran's center. Geoff, who otherwise was blown away by the story and who had primarily helped polish the prose, looked dubious.

"What is it Geoff?" Elena asked. She had come to trust his instincts. Geoff ran his hand through his hair, and leaned back against the couch.

"She worked on the prayers for him, all those years. Could she turn off those feelings for him quite so abruptly, I wonder?"

Elena pursed her lips for a moment, then started nodding slowly.

"Yeah…yeah…" she mused. Her fingers flew across the keys of her laptop, then stopped. "Yeah, I've got it!" She looked excited. There was more soft clicking of keys, while Geoff watched her proudly, smiling to himself. He caught Irma's eye, and was surprised to see her peering over her book at them, with a satisfied look on her face. She got up.

"I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, okay? And Geoff? There are fresh towels on the bed in your room."

"Thanks, Mrs. B."

They worked another half hour. The girl sits outside the boy's house, struggling. She even walks up to the door and contemplates just leaving the notebook on the step. But in the end, she leaves and donates the prayers. They were polishing it up when her father came in. They said goodnight to him and agreed to go to bed soon (it was midnight).

Finally alone, Elena closed her laptop. Geoff had leaned back against the couch, stretching his arms above his head, and she took advantage of that to just crawl into his lap. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, wanting to tell him goodnight. The next thing they knew, a hand was shaking them.

"Geoff! Ellie!" It was Irma, who had gotten up for a glass of water and saw the light on in the living room still. She found them asleep, her daughter in his lap, arms around his neck, head resting on his shoulder. She felt a smile on her face, because the scene was sweet, and innocent. And she had seen how Geoff adored Elena, and treated her so well, and how they worked so well together on the story. And Tony had told her how they insisted on surfing together. Yet she knew, instinctively, that they hadn't had sex yet. There was something about them that told Irma this relationship was special, and good. It had depth, certainly, but it also had _breadth_, far more than one expected for two people so young.

"I'm so sorry!" Geoff gasped, still groggy, but he was surprised to see Elena's mother smiling. His legs were asleep.

"'Come on, Ellie, let Geoff get up and get to bed." They managed to stagger up from the floor, then totter into the hall. Elena gave him a soft smile as she went into her room. Irma waved to him as he went to his.

"Thank you for helping Ellie," she said.

"It's my pleasure," Geoff answered.

"I know. It shows. And I appreciate it." She looked at Elena's door. "She loves you, you know. " He nodded. "And I know you love her."

He nodded again. She was still smiling, Geoff thought, so that had to be good.

"Treat each other well," she said. "Goodnight."

He was in bed when his phone buzzed. The text message made him chuckle:

_*****I liked sleeping with you*** **_

**XXXXxxxx**

"Did you win the contest?" Jamie asked.

"Did you ever figure out Geoff's writing?" Anoushka wondered.

Elena and Geoff laughed.

"No, I didn't win," she said, "But I did have the winning entry for my school."

"She wuz robbed," Geoff chimed in.

After graduation from middle school and Tony's enlistment, Elena eased off from writing for a few weeks, and Geoff, sensitive to her needs, did too. Her father allowed Stella, who was also having a hard time with Tony's absence, to drive the woody. So she, Anya and Elena made the trek to Hermosa Beach almost every day, meeting Geoff and his friends, and they all enjoyed a summer just being beach town kids.

"I finally figured out the puzzle Geoff had created about two months into high school."

**XXXxxxx**

She was in her room, late one Saturday night. Geoff was on the phone, telling her about a news story involving the Tunguska Event, an enormously powerful explosion in Siberia in 1908, believed to have been an airburst of a large meteorite or comet.

"Elena, it _flattened_ two-thousand square miles of forest!"

He said he'd first heard about it in Thomas Pynchon's novel _Against the Day_ and made her laugh by reading a quote from the book, describing one of its more bizarre aftereffects:

_**Reindeer discovered again their ancient powers of flight, which had lapsed over the centuries since humans began invading the North. Some were stimulated by the accompanying radiation into an epidermal luminescence at the red end of the spectrum, particularly around the nasal area. **_

She had come to love his enthusiasm for Pynchon, though she personally found the man's writing immensely complex. Too complex, for her tastes. There were usually too many characters and subplots to keep straight, in her opinion. It was obvious that he was an influence on Geoff, but, frankly, she thought Geoff did a better job.

Elena considered her own writing more conventional. Geoff was always telling her she was the better storyteller, to which she blushed, but disagreed. Looking over Geoff's writing over the past few months, she could see how he loved to stretch the language, and to take the structure of a story as far as he could without it turning it into some vanity project. He was playful, inventing words (she once told him that she was billing him for the time wasted looking up his invented words and finding they didn't exist), but, she noticed with fascination, he always made it clear what the word meant through the context. And the structure, while often unconventional, didn't lead her to lose interest. She came to the key realization one night that his reluctance to show his work in progress didn't come from secretiveness on his part. Rather, he pushed the boundaries so far that he had to make absolutely sure that he hadn't lost control and produced an unintelligible mess.

After Geoff hung up, having elicited from her the promise to get some sleep, Elena went back to the latest piece that Geoff had just finished and sent to her yesterday. She had discussed the previous pieces with him before—even convincing him of keeping the ones she thought were amazing, once she figured out their relationships with one another. They still seemed to lack an over- arching theme tying them together. But, as she read this new piece, she found it. She started seeing familiar snippets and phrases, all in the same passage. This last vignette was a Rosetta Stone, a key to all of the others.

An unnamed man was dying, alone, in the Sahara. She could feel the sand, the sun, and the overpowering, all-encompassing thirst. He was losing control of his thoughts as his system shut down, and his mind began drifting. And Elena understood. All of the other vignettes were random memories and mental images being generated by his failing mind. Yet, if one paid attention to them, it was possible to reconstruct the man's life and the circumstances that got him to this place. Going back to her journal notes, it became almost blindingly obvious.

She called him, excited. ""I figured it out, Geoff!" she exclaimed. He told her how proud he was, and relieved that it was, after all, understandable.

"I'm proud of you, too, baby," she whispered into the phone, "I can't wait to start working on it with you to polish it up." And she stopped suddenly. "Um…_assuming_ you want to work on it with me." His chuckle on the other end gave her immense relief.

"I need you to keep me from being too…abstract. I need you to make me better."

She loved him so much, and now she understood exactly where he was coming from in his art. It was as if that last, obscuring smudge on the window to Geoff's soul had been wiped away. He was open to her completely, as she hoped he felt she was to him. She felt her conventionality expand when she listened to his feedback, even though he didn't think he influenced her in that way. It was like Joni Mitchell sang:

_**I remember that time you told me you said**_

_**"Love is touching souls" **_

_**Surely you touched mine **_

_**'Cause part of you pours out of me **_

_**In these lines from time to time **_

At least, that is all she told the kids in the lounge, and Geoff's small smile did not escape her notice.

What she told them was the truth, of course. But there was more, much more, that she kept to herself. That she knew they had been converging on this moment since the day they met, with a love that had settled in their blood, defying age and convention. But both of them also knew, somehow, that the moment would reveal itself on its own terms, in its own way. So that night, when she told Geoff all she wanted was to be in his arms, in her bed at that very moment, and he told her he was ready too, it was a clear-eyed decision. They made love for the first time a week later, and when they did, it was sweet, a little hilarious, and oh, so satisfying, because it was, above all else, right and true.

**XXXxxx**

They all sampled some more of the sweet Nepalese hash before midnight, and when the clock struck twelve, Elena kissed him soundly as everyone wished him happy birthday.

"Happy Birthday, baby," she said, nuzzling his ear, then handed him a small package from the table.

It was a book, one that he recognized, because he already owned it: _The Quetzal Forest, _by V.J. Gorey. It was probably his favorite book on surfing, a novelistic memoir of a surfer from Long Island in the 1960's, who dealt drugs to pay for his surfing around the world, only to disappear into Central America for ten years, and emerge with a book describing the weird, hallucinogenic surfing life on the Costa Rican Pacific coast. "Gorey is the Carlos Castaneda of surfers," he told Elena once. She liked the book, but thought he sounded more like Hunter S. Thompson. Maybe that was just her.

"Open it, silly," Elena said, eagerly.

There was an inscription inside, on the title page:

_**To Geoff, one very lucky bastard. ~ V.J. Gorey **_

He looked at Elena in wonder. "How in the world did you get this? This guy is very reclusive and paranoid as hell."

Elena shrugged, then giggled and kissed him.

"It's a long story," she replied, taking in his appreciative gawk. "I'll tell it all to you someday, but for now, suffice it to say it involved me and my roommate Joanne; a cryptic message left on a Big Sur surfing blog; a weird phone conversation with said reclusive and paranoid author, in a sleazy bar in Santa Cruz, with the lecherous bartender as his intermediary; an unknown quantity of tequila; and a dawn meeting at a shark-infested surfing spot on the Central Coast."

He was now just gaping at her. Elena snapped a picture of his face ("For Joanne, who wanted to see your reaction".)

"You didn't surf that spot, did you?" he asked, finally, concerned. She grabbed his shoulders.

"Oh baby, you know I only surf with you. But he did cook Joanne and me some great breakfast burritos on his Coleman. He's a weird, but pretty cool guy, Geoff. "

He wanted all the details, of course. But they were at a party, so he kissed her, saying, "Thank-you, baby. I think this is the new best birthday present I ever received. And the story behind it sounds frakking amazing!"

Elena laughed. "I know, right? Ill tell you what: I'll give you all the details, you can write it up in your gonzo stream-of-consciousness style, get rich and famous, _then _I'll marry you because you'll be able to afford that house on Rocky Point we love so much, and we'll be able to surf Lunada Bay any time we want and not get our asses kicked, 'cause we'll be _locals_, bitches!"

She was right. It would be awesome. He had to reward that speech with another kiss.

"Gawd, could you two be any more ridiculously adorkable?" Anoushka wondered, for all of the others.

**XXXxxxxx **

She finished her makeup, and happily took his arm as they walked to the elevator. She leaned into him, not for support anymore, like she did at that dance so long ago, but because she loved him and liked being close. And she understood him like no other. On a surfboard, she was all balance, beauty and sun-blessed grace. She helped make his writing _breathe_. And just the thought of her took his own breath away, and she had come all the way across a continent just because it was his birthday, and would go to the ends of the earth just to get him a present for that birthday that actually meant something.

Geoff felt like one very lucky bastard, indeed.


End file.
